EU’s New Anti-Russian Asset Grabbing Scheme is ‘Theft’, ‘Act of War’
Hundreds of billions of dollars in Russian assets were trapped abroad in 2022 after the Ukrainian crisis escalated into a full-blown NATO-Russia proxy war. Earlier this year, reports in US business media indicated that the US and its allies were having trouble locating a substantial chunk of these funds. | Belgium plans to collect 3 billion euros a year in windfall profits from Russian assets frozen in the country’s coffers to give to Ukraine for “reconstruction” purposes, Prime Minister Alexander De Croo announced Friday. A day earlier, De Croo explained that Belgium was “very involved” in the issue because upwards of 90 percent of the Russian assets frozen in the EU’s jurisdiction are trapped in Belgian banks. The European Commission estimated in May that the bloc has frozen over 200 billion euros in assets belonging to Russia’s Central Bank, plus 24.1 billion owned by Russian companies, tycoons and other individuals. ● ‘Robbery’ in Broad Daylight | Asked to comment on Brussels’ plans, Christopher C Black, an international criminal and human rights lawyer with over 20 years’ experience under his belt, said that if realized, they would constitute “theft twice over” - first by seizing the money in the first place, and then preventing Russia from collecting its due interest. 💬 “The crime of theft becomes compounded with insult by giving the money to Kiev to finance the war against Russia, and if the money is so transferred by EU government order, it will be [an] act of war – since a nation supplying financial support to another nation to carry on a war can be considered under international law as a party to the war,” Black explained.