On Tuesday the White House said that steps to use frozen Russian assets will be announced during this week’s G7 summit in Italy, and new sanctions and export controls over Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.
National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said, ‘We will announce new steps to unlock the value of the immobilized Russian sovereign assets to benefit Ukraine’.
G7 leaders hope to agree a deal on using the profits from the interest on 300 billion euros ($325 billion) of frozen Russian central bank assets to help Kyiv.
The aim is to use the profits as collateral for a loan of up to $50 billion, but there is still confusion over who would issue the debt as well as a raft of technical issues including what would happen if the assets were unfrozen in the event of peace.
Kirby also said that an impactful set of new sanctions and export control actions will be announced, without providing specifics.
The G7 summit comes against the backdrop of global and political turmoil, and boosting support for Ukraine is at the top of the agenda.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will attend a discussion on Thursday about Russia’s war on his country, now into its third year, where he will again press for more help from Western allies.
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