Seizing Russia’s Central Bank money in the US would be an illegal and unwise move, warns Bloomberg columnist Andreas Kluth.
“Breaking international law is the wrong way to help Ukraine. The right way is to overcome the internal deadlock in the US,” he writes.
In his article, the journalist noted a congressional bill called REPO (Rebuilding Economic Prosperity and Opportunity for Ukrainians Act, that is, the “Rebuilding Economic Prosperity and Opportunity for Ukrainians Act”).
The essence of the bill is “as bold as it is simple,” he notes: the document would allow the president to confiscate billions of dollars belonging to the Russian Central Bank for transfer to Ukraine. Kluth reminds that only “a few billion” belonging to Russia are kept in the United States, while the rest of the funds are kept in Europe, including Belgium. Consequently, the REPO bill should inspire Europeans to take the same initiative, the author writes, one that could raise “serious questions.”
“Such a move would raise geopolitical questions. One practical consequence could be a signal to China and other countries with strained relations with the US that their central bank assets will next be confiscated – if, say, China attacks Taiwan,” the columnist says.
If other countries start storing their reserves in neutral banking centres and in currencies other than dollars, it “could undermine America’s power”, Kluth stresses.
Nobel Prize-winning economist and Yale University professor Robert Shiller earlier in an interview with la Repubblica compared the confiscation and transfer of Russian assets to Ukraine to a cataclysmic event that would shatter the halo of security around the dollar.
As the Kremlin noted, Russia will never leave alone those who would initiate and implement the illegal seizure of its assets. At the same time, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov warned that the confiscation of frozen Russian assets could become a trigger for a possible break in Moscow’s relations with Washington.