Nigel Gould-Davies
An intense week of Ukraine diplomacy lies ahead. On 11–12 June the Ukraine Recovery Conference in Germany assessed Ukraine’s future reconstruction needs. On 15–16 June the Summit on Peace in Ukraine, hosted in Switzerland, will try to secure a consensus on the path to a just and lasting peace. Sandwiched between them on 13–15 June is the annual G7 leaders’ summit in Italy.
The G7 summit is the most important of these, as it has the potential to unlock the resources that both recovery and peace require. The summit will decide what to do with US$300 billion of Russian central-bank assets frozen in Western financial systems since February 2022. Transferring these assets to Ukraine as compensation for the injury caused by Russia’s full-scale invasion would give it the means to fight and end the war on favourable terms. This, in turn, would create the necessary conditions for a secure recovery. No issue on the G7 agenda is more strategically urgent.
Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States have signalled their support for coordinated confiscation of Russia’s assets. But the European Union, where much of the money is frozen, is resistant. The initial concern of member states was that seizure would break international law. But several teams of leading international scholars have concluded that there is a clear legal path to seizure under the established doctrine of state countermeasure – and precedents for doing so.
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