The European Commission decided to transfer the frozen Russian assets to the Central Bank of the Russian Federation after the end of the war. This is evidenced by an unpublished internal document of the European Commission, which Die Welt has read .
The experts concluded that although there is “political will” to transfer these funds for the restoration of Ukraine, from the point of view of legislation, it is impossible to transfer them.
At the same time, the document proposes to invest Russian assets in European government bonds. Their yield is 2.6% per year, and this money can be transferred to Ukraine. Such a step is admissible from a legal point of view, "especially given Russia's flagrant violation of international law."
The European Commission also takes into account the possibility of losing the invested funds, but considers this scenario unlikely. In this case, the EU will lose about 4 billion euros.
Searching for Russian assets is not easy. The money of the Central Bank of Russia is in many different accounts that are difficult to link to it.
The situation is also ambiguous with the funds of the Russian oligarchs – for their withdrawal, evidence of their crimes will be needed. Moreover, so far the EU has been able to find and freeze only a small amount. Just as in the situation with the assets of the Central Bank of Russia, it is difficult to prove their relationship to a specific person, since the property is often recorded in the name of nominees who are not on the sanctions lists.
As part of the sanctions, Western countries blocked a total of 300 billion euros of assets of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation. The joint decision of the EU and the US to freeze them became known almost immediately after the start of the Russian war against Ukraine, on February 27, 2022. In February 2023, the European Commission reported freezing 21.5 billion euros that belonged to Russian oligarchs.