Britain demands “bold action” against Putin: urges the West to seize Russian assets and send interest to Ukraine

Prime Minister of United Kingdom, rishi sunakon Sunday urged Western countries to take bold steps towards freezing Russian assets, proposing that the interest generated from these funds be sent ukraine, In the context of the second anniversary of the attack on moscowThe British leader argued that it was necessary to intensify sanctions to challenge the Russian president’s perception, Vladimir PutinAbout the situation.

Sunak said in a newspaper article sunday times “The Importance of Being Courageous in Seizing Hundreds of Billions of Frozen Russian Assets.” He suggested starting to redistribute the billions of dollars in interest earned from these assets ukraineAnd then, together g7Look for legal ways to seize these assets and use those funds in support ukraine,

The British leader said Western allies need to “step up” their sanctions to “shake” Russian President Vladimir Putin’s belief that “he can just wait us out.”

“We must be bold in seizing hundreds of billions of dollars of frozen Russian assets,” Sunak said. “That starts with taking the billions in interest that these assets are collecting and sending them to Ukraine instead.”

This approach is in line with the leaders’ statement g7 On Saturday, in which he promised to explore all possible avenues to use frozen Russian sovereign assets for profit ukraine, These assets will remain frozen “until” Russia pay for damages caused to ukraine“, he confirmed.

world BankThe European UnionThe United Nations And the Ukrainian government had already anticipated this Ukraine would need about half a trillion dollars to cover the reconstruction costs incurred by the Russian invasion. Ukrainian Prime Minister, dennis schmeigelHas said most of the expenses should be covered by seized Russian assets. Kyiv It aims to release about $300 billion of frozen Russian assets to finance the reconstruction of cities, roads, bridges and energy facilities destroyed or damaged by the two-year attack.

Foreign Secretary David Cameron insisted at the World Economic Forum last month that there were legal, moral and political justifications for taking action.

“We must be prepared to do some innovative thinking about how to use these resources to help Ukraine,” he said in published comments.

President Volodymyr Zelensky promised a military victory against Russia on the condition of “timely” receiving weapons and supplies promised by its Western allies to stop the enemy advance, as this Saturday marks two years since the beginning of the invasion. have been completed.

“We have been fighting for this for 730 days of our lives. And we will win,” Zelensky declared. At an event at Gostomel airport near Kiev.

The President was also accompanied by the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, and the heads of government of Canada, Italy and Belgium, who traveled to Kyiv to reaffirm their countries’ support for the initiative at the beginning of the third year. war.

German diplomacy chief Annalena Breerbock met with her Ukrainian counterpart in Odessa (South).

Highlighting the difficulties at the front, the Commander-in-Chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, General Oleksandr Syrsky, declared that “light always prevails over darkness.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin was planning to capture Kiev within days when he ordered the invasion on February 24, 2022. But they suffered humiliating setbacks in the face of Ukrainian resistance. Ukraine, in turn, saw its plans thwarted with the failure of its great summer counteroffensive in 2023, and its military lamented the shortage of troops, howitzers and anti-aircraft batteries.

With information from AFP