Western analysts in an article published by the Financial Times call on the US and its partners to abandon the seizure of frozen assets of the Russian Federation in favor of using the profits from them to provide aid to Ukraine.
How the seizure of Russian frozen assets can harm the US and its partners
It is noted that the G7 countries are currently discussing the possible seizure of frozen $300 billion of Russian assets.
In particular, the US supports the seizure of frozen assets of the Russian Federation as a countermeasure and to help states affected by the war.
Thus, Washington appeals to the international legal doctrine of reprisals when harming one state by another.
Representatives of the American government and the administration of US President Joe Biden are convinced that the injured party has the right to take countermeasures against the aggressor.
The justification for confiscating Russian state assets, the retaliation argument, has three problems: it lacks persuasiveness, it is invoked by the wrong parties, and it undermines the rules-based order that Western governments claim to protect, the publication said.
The authors of the article note that in the vast majority of cases, when the confiscation of one state's property by another was part of the response to aggression, it led to an open conflict between those who confiscated it and those from whom it seized.
How should the US and its partners deal with the Russian frozen assets
The publication gives the example of Germany after the defeat in the First World War.
In particular, Germany lost almost all of its foreign property due to the defeat.
But other countries could only activate confiscation powers by declaring war on the Kaiser.
Another precedent is the confiscation of Iraqi foreign assets as punishment for the 1990 invasion of Kuwait.
However, this happened after the UN authorized international intervention to restore peace.
Such examples show that Ukraine's allies cannot have an ambiguous position, declaring their authority during the war, while at the same time insisting that they are not at war with Russia, the authors of the publication emphasise.
They warn that such confiscation may turn out to be a destabilizing element.
For example, Asian countries could seize the foreign assets of any state in the US-led coalition that invaded Iraq.
In addition, the publication's authors indicate the economic impracticality of such a step.
Aid to Ukraine from the US and the EU amounted to more than 100 billion dollars annually.
This amount is quite acceptable for the transatlantic economy.
At the same time, financing Ukraine at the expense of several billion euros of annual profits from Russian assets will redirect the flow of income and not affect the principal amount, and the international legal consequences will be milder
