In this video we look in a very specific question related to the distribution of revenues from the frozen / immobilised Russian assets. Such freeze occurred as a result of various comprehensive blocking and similar sanctions imposed against Russia and affecting the assets of the Russian Central Bank, various individuals and companies subject to blocking sanctions as well as non-sanctioned companies/individuals who used Russian banks and depositaries for their investments and lost access to such investments due to such banks becoming blocked persons.
As almost universally the purposes of such sanctions are to deter Russia and to support Ukraine, one would expect that all revenues generated by Russian frozen / immobilised assets will be provided as support to Ukraine.
Surprisingly, despite the overal amount of frozen Russian assets being publicly reported as being in the region of EUR400bln equivalent (including, both the assets of the Russian Central Bank of, approximately, EUR300bln with the remaining part belonging to other Russian persons) and refinancing rates of the Central Banks being record high during 2022 – 2026 period compared to previous 10 years, the revenues distributed to Ukraine are much more modest accounting to EUR1.4bln for six months in 2026.
We discuss in this video what may be the potential reasons for such an inconsistency as well as explain generally the factual and legal status of Russian frozen / immobilised assets.
Thank you for watching!