Seize Russia’s assets and repurpose them for the self-defence of Ukraine - Alex Sobel
Let us be under no illusion: in this country we are in our own war with Russia. Every day, the Russians undertake hybrid attacks against us, but here, unlike in Ukraine, where children are under direct threat of death and abduction from Russia, our children are under threat of online manipulation.
Although our buildings are not under immediate threat of destruction by Russian drones, our borders are being tested by reconnaissance and dummy drones to assess our readiness for a full-scale war.
I have been to Ukraine seven times since the start of the full-scale invasion, and not just to Kyiv or Lviv; I have travelled that great country in its time of greatest need, visiting Vinnytsia, Zhytomyr, Odesa, Chernihiv, Mykolaiv, Kherson oblast, Dnipro, Zaporizhzhia and my sister city of Kharkiv, which has had a relationship with Leeds since not long after the full-scale invasion began.
I have seen at first hand the strength, courage and determination of Ukraine and the commitment to Ukrainian culture, language and identity.
I know that the Ukrainian people will never allow their identity to be subsumed by Russia.
That is why the Russian practice of stealing Ukrainian children, Russifying them and then, when of age, sending them back to Ukraine to fight for Russia is so abhorrent. It is the worst, most dystopian war crime one can imagine.
We need to ensure that Russia is prosecuted at the International Criminal Court for that.
Only maximum pressure on Russia and placing Ukraine in the strongest possible position will create a scenario where a ceasefire can be agreed. The twin approach of seizing Russian state assets for military aid and squeezing the Russian economy through the strongest possible sanctions regime may create those conditions, and it would certainly put Ukraine in a much stronger position than it is now.
We all know what assets are held in Euroclear, and we need those assets to be seized and repurposed for the self-defence of Ukraine.
Euroclear has been holding about €200bn belonging to Russia’s central bank, which is the majority of an estimated €260bn in sovereign Russian assets held in the west.
The full seizure of Russian assets is clearly proportional to the crimes committed by the Russian state against Ukraine, and any post-war settlement will incur huge reparations, so the seizure of assets is paying forward a long tradition of post-war reparations.
I welcome the news that the European Commission plans to move forward quickly with the reparations loan to Ukraine using frozen Russian assets, or an EU loan based on common borrowing, with a figure of €90bn being reported, which is significant. That second option is due to some reservations from the Belgian Government, who host Euroclear in Brussels. I welcome Ursula von der Leyen’s statement that Ukraine must have “the means to defend” itself “and take forward peace negotiations for a position of strength.”
Publicly available information indicates that the United Kingdom has frozen private, corporate and Russian assets belonging to sanctioned individuals amounting to £28bn.
An abridged version of a speech by Alex Sobel, Labour MP for Leeds Central and Headingley, in Parliament.