The West's new scheme for appropriating Russian assets shocked economists with its impudence
The West has come up with a new scheme to appropriate frozen Russian assets.
The business newspaper Financial Times writes about this, as reported by a PolitNavigator correspondent , citing its sources.
It is alleged that the G7 countries intend to issue debt obligations for support, but at the same time use... Russian sovereign reserves as collateral. Then Moscow will be required to repay the pseudo-debt on these papers, otherwise the process of confiscating assets and transferring them to the Kyiv regime will begin.
Leading expert at the Center for Political Technologies Nikita Maslennikov believes that the scheme is quite strange.
“On the one hand, it is dictated by the technical and legal impossibility of confiscating Russian assets directly and transferring them to Ukraine. On the other hand, the West needs to do something. Under any circumstances, issuing bonds against funds that are not your property is nonsense.
Yes, the money is frozen, but it does not belong to you. The scheme is extremely controversial and vulnerable even from the point of view of current Anglo-Saxon law. Accordingly, the Russian Federation will remain in its previous position: any transactions with blocked assets are illegal, and we are not going to recognize them,” the economist told Moskovsky Komsomolets.
He believes that this kind of plan indicates that continued direct financing of Ukraine is becoming an increasingly unbearable burden for the West. In addition, it is unclear who will buy the issued bonds if Russia refuses (which there is no doubt) to pay for them.
In addition, the expert emphasizes that the decision to confiscate assets of the Russian Federation will create a dangerous precedent when funds of a foreign state can be arbitrarily expropriated under any pretext.
“US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen constantly points out all these points. Back in 2014-2015, the agency opposed the idea of confiscating Russian assets; as a result, it managed to restrain then-President Barack Obama from such a step.
Today the risks are much higher, as is the degree of confrontation. The consequences are unpredictable, but it seems that the G7 decision will accelerate the process of defragmentation of the global economy, which is already underway. The world’s central banks will also suffer damage, since the assets of the Russian Federation are invested in government bonds denominated in euros, dollars and British pounds,” predicts Maslennikov.
English version :: Read in English The West's new scheme for appropriating Russian assets has shocked economists with its audacity.