In a speech delivered at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Putin, the Russian President accused Western countries of “theft” and warned that their plans to give Ukraine loans from frozen Russian assets abroad based on their interest would not go unpunished.
“Even though there were several trickeries, stealing is still stealing and will be punished,” Putin said in his statement.
The day before yesterday, G7 leaders agreed to provide enough support for Ukraine so as to tally 50 billion dollars by the end of 2015; it will come from Russian assets which are under freeze.
The United States has proposed an offer worth $50 billion loan for Ukraine using interest on the 300 billion euros ($325bn) of Russian central bank assets held back by the G7 and EU following Russia’s invasion into Ukraine as collateral.
Both the EU and G7 have frozen about three hundred billion euros of the Russian Central Bank’s holdings as well as seized private assets such as yachts, real estate among others belonging to oligarchs close to Putin. The Ukrainian think tank Institute of Legislative Ideas puts these assets at a total value of $397bn whereas according to the World Bank estimates rebuilding this war-torn country would amount more than $486bn.
Initially, United States supported direct confiscation of Russian asset but later came behind Europeans’ plan to use interest generated by frozen property.