Yellen And Giorgetti Discuss Using Frozen Russian Assets To Support UKR

Reuters reporting that Italian Finance Minister Giancarlo Giorgetti and US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen discussed, "a path to use frozen Russian assets to compensate Ukraine for war damage," in a meeting at the G20 Finance Ministers meetings in Brazil today.

• According a US Treasury readout Yellen and Giorgetti, "exchanged views on priorities during Italy’s G7 presidency [and] discussed shared efforts to support Ukraine..."
• With additional US aid to Ukraine stalled in Congress, the possibility of confiscating frozen Russian sovereign assets to fund Ukraine has emerged as an increasingly credible Plan B.
• EU President Ursula von der Leyen said in a speech today: “It is time to start a conversation about using the windfall profits of frozen Russian assets to jointly purchase military equipment for Ukraine. There could be no greater use for that money than to make Ukraine and all of Europe a safer place to live.”
• FT reports that, "the [European] commission will present a formal proposal in two weeks," and notes that VDL's statement is the, "first time the EU has linked the use of frozen Russian sovereign assets to potential weapons procurement."
• Although the Biden administration has long-supported confiscating the roughly €300bn, European leaders, where the majority of funds are held, have been ambivalent about the legal ramifications.
• French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said at the G20 today: “We don’t have the legal basis to seize the Russian assets, and we should never act if we don’t obey by international law and the rule of law.”