Russia must pay for Ukraine reconstruction, EU chief says
- Russian assets worth US$21 billion have been frozen since Moscow invaded Ukraine, along with US$312 billion in foreign exchange reserves
- These reserves are blocked and ‘there are legal procedures, but the proposal is on the table … Russia has to pay’, EU chief says
European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said at regional security talks on Thursday that he plans to discuss with his counterparts any available legal means to ensure Russia pays for the reconstruction of war-torn Ukraine.
Borrell spoke at the start of this year’s two-day ministerial conference of the Organisation for Security and cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in the central Polish city of Lodz.
“I will meet with my colleague foreign ministers today … We will explore all legal possibilities to make sure that Russia will pay for the destruction it’s causing in Ukraine,” Borrell told reporters.
He recalled that the EU has frozen Russian assets worth nearly 20 billion euros (US$21 billion) since Moscow invaded Ukraine, and that Western sanctions have also led to the freezing of 300 billion euros (US$312 billion) of Central Bank of Russia foreign exchange reserves around the world.
“These reserves are blocked. But from being blocked to being seized is a strong difference”, Borrell said. “And there are legal procedures that have to be studied. But our proposal is on the table … Russia has to pay for the reconstruction of Ukraine”.
EU chief Ursula von der Leyen had on Wednesday floated the idea of a “specialised court” to put Russia’s top officials on trial over the war in Ukraine.
“While continuing to support the International Criminal Court, we are proposing to set up a specialised court backed by the United Nations to investigate and prosecute Russia’s crime of aggression,” she said.
The chief of staff to Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky welcomed the idea, saying: “Russia will pay for crimes and destruction.”
Von der Leyen proposed having a court set up in an EU country that could tackle Russia specifically on the crime of aggression, while leaving war crimes and crimes against humanity to the ICC.
The Netherlands, which already hosts the ICC in The Hague, has indicated its willingness to establish the mooted new court on its territory.
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Ukraine sacked a top engineer at the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant on Thursday, accusing him of collaborating with Russian forces, and urged other Ukrainian staff at the plant to remain loyal to Kyiv.
The head of state nuclear energy firm Energoatom made the appeal a day after Russia said it had promoted Ukrainian engineer Yuriy Chernichuk to serve as director of the vast plant in southeastern Ukraine.
“Instead of taking all efforts to liberate the station as fast as possible, he decided to help the Russian occupiers legalise its criminal seizure and is now inciting other atomic workers to do this,” Energoatom chief Petro Kotin said.
Moscow said in October it was putting Europe’s largest nuclear power plant under the control of Russian nuclear authorities. Kyiv says the move is illegal.
Nearly half Ukraine’s electricity grid remains damaged, a private operator said on Thursday, a week after the latest Russian strikes on the country’s energy infrastructure disrupted power to millions of people.
“Russia has destroyed 40 per cent of the Ukrainian energy system with terrorist missile attacks. ” DTEK company said.
Last week, a latest series of massive strikes on Ukrainian energy facilities left entire regions across Ukraine cold and dark.
Also on Thursday, the top Russian-installed official in Ukraine’s partly occupied Donetsk region said that Moscow and Kyiv would each hand over 50 prisoners of war in the latest exchange between the two sides.
In a post on his Telegram channel, Denis Pushilin said the exchange would take place later on Thursday.
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Kyiv boosted security at its embassies abroad after a security guard at its mission in Madrid was lightly injured while opening a letter bomb addressed to the Ukrainian ambassador.
He was discharged from hospital on Wednesday and later returned to work, Ukraine’s ambassador to Spain Serhii Pohoreltsev told Spanish state television, blaming Russia for the attack.
Western countries have rushed military aid to support Kyiv’s forces since the invasion, as well as issuing various other forms of support.
Britain unveiled a new round of sanctions on Russian officials over the war in Ukraine, targeting those accused of spearheading recent mobilisation efforts and the recruitment of “criminal mercenaries”.
Switzerland said on Thursday that it has frozen a total of 7.5 billion Swiss francs (US$7.9 billion) in Russian assets, in connection with the imposed sanctions.
Also on Thursday, Chinese President Xi Jinping urged efforts to bring calm to the war in Ukraine in talks with European Council President Charles Michel, a sign that Beijing may be trying to address one of its biggest points of friction with Europe.
Earlier in the week, at an event organised by The New York Times, President Zelensky criticised US billionaire Elon Musk’s proposal to end Russia’s offensive in Ukraine and invited him to visit his war-scarred country.
“If you want to understand what Russia has done here – come to Ukraine and you will see it all for yourself”, he said. “And then you will tell me how to end this war, who started it and when it can be ended”.
