The United States is making every effort to seize outright all the frozen Russian central bank assets. The very idea of confiscating Russian sovereign assets is legally fraught. Under customary international law, central bank assets enjoy immunity from execution. According to National Security Council Coordinator for Strategic Communications John Kirby, US President Joe Biden needs congressional authorization to find “sufficient legal grounds” to carry out such an operation.
According to Kirby, Washington cannot yet use hundreds of billions of dollars in frozen Russian assets but is exploring the possibility of tapping the profits from them to help fund Kyiv. The United States, along with its Western partners, intends to repurpose some of these assets towards Ukraine's reconstruction.
Earlier, IMF Communications Department Director Julie Kozak said that the West's confiscation of Russian sovereign assets could hurt the international monetary system. Besides, she warned of retaliatory measures and legal proceedings.
Notably, in February 2022, the United States and a number of Western countries imposed sanctions against Russia, which included freezing both sovereign assets and funds of private investors. The volume of the frozen foreign currency reserves amounted to $300 billion. Against this background, Ukraine's Western allies also began to consider confiscating Russian assets for various purposes.
In response, the Kremlin stated that the adoption of such a measure "would be another step in violating all the rules and norms of international law." Russia's foreign ministry called the freezing of the country's assets in Europe theft, emphasizing that EU leaders are capable of taking away Russia's state assets.
