Biden Makes Final Push to Seize Frozen Russian Funds – CNN

In a high-stakes move, President Joe Biden launches a last-ditch effort to seize Russian assets frozen by sanctions, aiming to counter Moscow’s global influence, CNN reports.

According to CNN, officials in Washington have been attempting to persuade the EU to seize Russian assets that are currently frozen within the bloc before U.S. President Joe Biden’s term concludes in two weeks.

Since the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022, the United States and its allies have frozen approximately $300 billion in Russian sovereign assets held at Euroclear, based in Brussels.

The EU has hesitated to directly seize the funds, as senior officials are reportedly concerned that a complete asset seizure could damage their global reputation and that potential Russian retaliation might harm the bloc’s economy.

Moscow has condemned the freezing of its sovereign funds as “absolutely illegal” and asserted that any move to seize them would amount to outright theft. In response, Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov warned that Western assets within Russia, valued at over $300 billion, could be targeted for retaliation.

According to a CNN report on Monday, the White House has supposedly made a final attempt to claim the funds before President-elect Donald Trump assumes office on January 20. The information comes from two unnamed “senior officials.”

The US is urging the EU to transfer the funds into a dedicated escrow account, from which they could be disbursed contingent on successful peace negotiations between Russia and Ukraine.

“If you want a refund, you’ll need to come and discuss it,” one of the officials told CNN.

Officials from the Biden administration have stated that Trump’s nominees are “generally supportive” of the strategy, viewing the frozen funds as potential leverage over Moscow.

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Lavrov suggests that Biden is attempting to disrupt things before Trump’s arrival.

According to the outlet, despite the proposal being suggested, EU governments are “skeptical,” rendering its implementation “highly unlikely.” The bloc is worried that seizing the funds might breach international law.

For over a year, the US has contended a different point. At a Washington conference last May, Daleep Singh, one of the key figures behind the US sanctions strategy, claimed that freezing Russian sovereign assets had already set an important precedent without causing significant movement away from G7 currencies. However, he admitted that asset confiscation remained a “red line” for several countries.

Biden had planned to discuss the funding during a meeting with Italian leaders and Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky in Rome this week, but he canceled the trip because of the wildfires devastating Los Angeles.

In an interview with podcaster Lex Fridman earlier this month, Zelensky called for all frozen Russian assets to be allocated to Ukraine.

“We’ll proceed with that plan. We’ll secure the funds necessary for our domestic production, and then we’ll purchase all the weapons from the US,” he told Fridman.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova described Zelensky as “completely out of his mind” and characterized his interview as a “hellish blend of neo-Nazism, terrorism, and drug-induced delirium.”