The European Union has frozen around €68 billion, which is $70 billion in Russian assets. Most of these are located in Belgium, as reported by Politico on Friday.The assets are told to be an internal document covering a wide range of areas of the European Commission's interactions with Ukraine.
The bulk of the frozen Russian property in Belgium is estimated to be worth €50 billion, which is $51 billion. While the other €5.5 billion, that is $5.7 billion, is in Luxemburg. These two major countries, along with Italy, Germany, Ireland, Austria, and France, hold accountability for more than 90% of the frozen assets, which Politico reports.
The document also contains the sum, which includes a part of Russia's national foreign exchange reserves, estimated to be approximately €33.8 billion. However, the report says that the exact figure -"is now under assessment, so not to be quoted."
The European Commission has also stated that legislation recognizing sanctions evasion is a European Union crime. Such activities would give rights to member states the to confiscate Russia's frozen assets in the case of a criminal conviction. At the same time, Kyiv has repeatedly demanded that its Western allies seize Russian money and use it to rebuild Ukraine. Altho, any such decision has yet to be made so far.
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