cubedebate

Image: Peter Reynolds.

Eager to try to preserve its weak imperial regime, the United States pressures Western countries to be the first to seize frozen Russian assets and use them to fuel the Ukrainian conflict in which NATO has been involved from the beginning. Has been involved.

This arbitrary and illegal measure would be a devastating blow to the international financial system and would cause very serious inconvenience to that system as a whole.

Last December, Washington proposed the Group of Seven (G7) investigate and analyze ways to do so and provide a response by the end of February 2024.

On January 24, the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee supported a bill to “hand over” frozen Russian assets to Ukraine, although the document must be approved by the full session.

The United States, the European Union (EU), Japan, and Canada seized more than $300 billion of the Russian Central Bank’s assets in 2022 in response to Moscow’s special military operation to demilitarize and denuclearize Ukraine. About 200 billion are in Europe, mainly in the Belgian depository Euroclear.

According to data from the Bank of Russia, in June 2021, about $288 billion were deposited in Austria, the United Kingdom, Germany, Canada, the United States, France and Japan, and another $63 billion were deposited in the countries mentioned has not been done.

Ukraine is in a deep financial and military crisis after the failure of its counteroffensive on the war front, while President Joe Biden faces opposition in Congress to spend an additional $61 billion in aid to Kiev while Europe It failed to agree (due to Hungary’s veto) another aid package of 50 billion euros for that country, which was finally approved on 31 January.

Faced with the illegal move to seize Russian assets, President Vladimir Putin declared during the Eastern Economic Forum held in Vladivostok in September 2023 that the measure “crosses all limits.”

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zazarova explained that they consider this type of action not only simple theft, but also a trade war and promised “significant and painful” retaliation if it were to happen. . taken.

In late January, Brussels, Washington and Canada, in separate parliamentary cases, approved the seizure of these assets for delivery to Kiev, which could be used for weapons, equipment and financing to continue the war against Moscow. Will be changed.

There are many voices coming from the West calling for prudence and evaluating its consequences.

The Belgian Finance Minister, Vincent Van Peteghem, said that the Community bloc should be “very cautious” about the proposal and highlighted the importance of the measure being “legally sound” so that the bloc would avoid “any impact on financial stability.” Can be saved.”

Luxembourg Chancellor Xavier Bettel stressed the importance of having a legal basis for the measure. “Imagine that we, politically, decide to give billions of dollars (of Russian assets) to Ukraine, and six months later we have a court ruling that we are not allowed to give them to them. So who will pay?

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has warned on several occasions that Moscow will challenge the possible steps taken in court because they are illegal, would go against all possible rules and would ultimately involve very serious judicial and legal costs for those making such decisions. Will happen.

As is known, Russia can condemn this illegal move at the International Court of Justice in The Hague, the Southern District Court of New York and the Court of Justice of the European Union in Luxembourg. That is, the decision to seize Russian assets would lead to numerous legal disputes in the courts that would last for years and could trigger a seizure war.

Moscow has expressed that it can respond to the West’s actions symmetrically and seize much larger assets of enemy countries than those frozen in Europe and the United States.

The hybrid war that the West has waged against Russia to try to destabilize the Moscow government has now, as many analysts have called it, entered into a destructive and catastrophic financial conflict that will threaten dollar hegemony. Will also cause accidental damage.

If this illegal action is taken today against Russian assets, tomorrow it could be against China, Saudi Arabia, India and other countries.

Chinese regulators have already held meetings with major domestic and foreign banks to seek ways to protect their interests. Beijing is one of Washington’s biggest foreign creditors, owning about $860 billion in U.S. Treasury bonds and hoarding about $10 trillion of green currency assets abroad.

In short, the financial war on the decaying American empire has escalated and many will ultimately lose.

(taken from Rebellion)