Ukraine wants Russia’s sanctioned forex reserves

Ukraine is expecting to be granted access to $400 billion worth of frozen Russian assets for the country’s reconstruction fund, President Volodymyr Zelensky’s economic adviser, Oleg Ustenko, said in an interview with the local Ukraine 24 news outlet.

“We are talking primarily about the $300 billion frozen Russian Central Bank reserves… [and] the frozen assets of President Vladimir Putin’s inner circle, which includes several hundred people outside the country,” Ustenko said, commenting on the sources for the reconstruction fund Ukraine is planning to set up in order to deal with the consequences of the current crisis.

The official noted that in addition to this fund, Ukraine hopes to receive financial aid from its Western partners, and counts on having an overall amount of up to $500 billion to restore the country with.

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Earlier, several Western politicians have voiced similar ideas, claiming economic sanctions against Moscow failed to deliver the desired effect of pressuring Russia to stop its military operation in Ukraine.

Moscow attacked its neighbor in late February, following Ukraine’s failure to implement the terms of the Minsk agreements signed in 2014, and Russia’s eventual recognition of the Donbass republics in Donetsk and Lugansk. The German and French brokered protocols had been designed to regularize the status of those regions within the Ukrainian state.

Russia has now demanded that Ukraine officially declare itself a neutral country that will never join the US-led NATO military bloc. Kiev insists the Russian offensive was completely unprovoked and has denied claims it was planning to retake the two republics by force.

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