Russia, basically throughout the entire period of Vladimir Putin’s reign, has waged some kind of war. The West did business with it despite the conflicts in Chechnya and Georgia, the air raids on Aleppo in Syria, the annexation of Crimea and the war in the Donbas. Even now, after February 24, when the Russians started their invasion of Ukraine, business is still going strong. It may not be what it was a few months ago, but Russia is still connected by a network of contracts with EU countries and companies.

However, it’s hard not to get the impression that the war in Ukraine changed something in Putin’s approach to Russia. EU politicians are increasingly talking about the need to confiscate Russian property in the West. We are talking not only about the assets of the oligarchs, but also assets estimated at about $ 300 billion. Reserves of the Central Bank of Russia. If this happens, it will be the collapse of the rules of trade and business in a democratic part of the world. After all, there is a cult of property rights in the heart of the West.

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I support this solution because I believe it is a logical step. We have that money in our pocket, therefore someone explain to me why this can be done with Afghan money and not with Russian money EU Commissioner Josep Borrell said.

US President Joe Biden and Charles Michel, President of the Council of Europe, also mentioned the seizure of Russian assets. As seen, the idea is not the voice of low-level officials, but such expectations of frozen Russian assets in the West raised by top politicians.

Previously, for years, the West implemented a policy of turning a blind eye to imperialism, which aroused aggression and was dangerous for its neighbor in Russia.

More and more countries are openly discussing this possibility. Americans and Canadians talk about it head-on. Individual EU countries too – pointed out in an interview with money.pl Jan Strzelecki from the Polish Economic Institute.

Strzelecki argues that if we manage to get supranational approval for such a move, it will strengthen the US-Europe transatlantic alliance with Japan’s participation. It will also prevent states from violating the international order. Indicates that the penalties for such actions are high.

Confiscations are estimated at more than $300 billion. Russia’s reserves will be a powerful blow that Russia cannot respond to as far as it wants. There is no such tool.

– Russian response is limited. No one keeps foreign currency reserves in rubles. It will be conducive to making such a decision. However, the confiscation is far away, but I was very surprised by the number of votes in favor of such a movement. Russia’s aggressive actions in Ukraine mean more and more politicians support such an idea – asserts Jan Strzelecki from PIE.

Very far, despite Russia’s aggressive actions against Ukraine or Georgia, the West still tries not to burn bridges. And Russia’s foreign and domestic policies continue to be revisionist and hate-based. Let us recall that one of the demands made by Russia in December 2021 against Western leaders was to return to the security system before the expansion of NATO in 1997..

Putting on the table the option of confiscation of assets owned by Russia and its oligarchs on a sanctions list is an idea that goes against the way the West handled Russian business before February 24.

Suffice it to say that by the time Russia had already brought their troops to the border with Ukraine, Nord Stream 2 was already done and quietly awaiting certification from German authorities.

More than half of Russia’s reserves are in the West. There is talk of $300 billion that could be used to rebuild Ukraine from the devastation of war. It will be a movement that affects the functioning of the entire world economy and international relations. This would be an unprecedented step in terms of scale. There will be no turning back from this decision – tell us Jan Strzelecki.

The deputy director of the Center for Polish-Russian Dialogue and Understanding, ukasz Adamski, believes that Russia’s demands from December have convinced many that the country is dealing with the West, and the war only confirms this belief.

The first warning for the West was the annexation of Crimea, but by February 24, everyone might reach the conclusion that there will be no more business as usual with Russia. It was a move that turned things around – says money.pl ukasz Adamski.

In his opinion, the question of the confiscation of Russian reserves is a derivative of the debate about how radical the West’s actions are against Russia.

– In the first weeks of the war, when it was feared that Russia would achieve its goals, and therefore it was necessary to influence the Kremlin, it was decided to freeze the reserves, but basically there was no talk of their confiscation. . However, the atmosphere in the West became radical after the massacre in Bucza and when it turned out that the Ukrainian army had resisted the attacks first and was partially able to counterattack around Kiev, and then Kharkiv, said ukasz Adamski.

He reminded that Ukraine was struggling with a strong army, and before the outbreak of war it was one of the poorest countries in Europe.

Huge amounts of money will be needed for reconstruction, and for this we need huge loans to support the economy and buy weapons. It takes a bureaucratic effort to find such money in the West. In this case, the confiscation of Russian funds is an appropriate political signalbut also relatively simple steps, because the money is there, you just need to find the appropriate legal formula – adds the expert.

You can talk about any war reparations when the peace is signed. We still don’t know how the war will end, but one thing is for sure – Ukraine already has serious problems due to the devastation of the war, the suspension of many sectors of the economy, these problems are just piling up every day, and Russian money, as Borrell puts it – they are in the pockets of the west. .

Michał Krawiel, journalist at money.pl