this post was submitted on 18 Jan 2024
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Zelensky calls for seized Russian billions to rebuild Ukraine (www.bbc.com)
submitted 10 months ago by MicroWave@lemmy.world to c/world@lemmy.world
24 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

President Zelensky has called for some of the Russian billions seized by world banks to be sent to rebuild Ukraine.

The G7 group is considering taking only the rise in value and interest due since the assets were frozen in 2020.

But the Ukrainian president told the BBC all of the money should be used. "If the world has $300bn - why not use it?", he said.

The BBC understands central bankers in Europe have concerns over undermining banks' safe haven status.

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[–] AlteredStateBlob@kbin.social 62 points 10 months ago (4 children)

I love that capitalism is more concerned about setting precedent here than saving lives, yet nonsense like civil forfeiture in the US leads to millions stolen from regular people each year. It's always only about whose bottom line is affected. Can't make a case for seizing foreign assets and redistributing them. That would mean everyone can do it and after all, it's a large club of very white gentlemen who have backroom agreements on this kind of stuff. If they do this with Russian assets, what's gonna stop China from doing the same with US assets!? How could we ever keep up with international trade and investments and tax evasion schemes, if we allow such horrible treatment of the most vulnerable billionaires of our society?

Shit's fucked.

[–] Rivalarrival@lemmy.today 14 points 10 months ago (1 children)

If they do this with Russian assets, what's gonna stop China from doing the same with US assets!?

If they seize US assets in China, we seize their assets in the US. Then we default on the $870 billion dollars in debt we owe to them, cut them off from American markets, and watch India become our biggest trading partner.

[–] noobdoomguy8658@feddit.de 4 points 10 months ago

I don't know shit about finances or economics or markets, but this seems to make sense. That's probably why it makes sense to me in the first place.

It seems similar to mutually assured destruction, like the one that a nuclear arsenal poses, acting as a deterrent to all the parties involved. If you harm their market, they harm yours, and in this day and age, it's more disastrous than ever, perhaps.

The bigger problem is likely spread out across smaller markets, which, combined, net you a solid benefit and profit, but if some of they start using such precedents as an excuse to seize your assets for only their benefit and profit, they might lose less than you do, ultimately proving the concern in @AlteredStateBlob@kbin.social's comment above.

We might as well be discussing it in way more detail than the decision-makers here, as yeah, setting precedents that could (or could not) potentially harm their profits and leviathan wealth is a no-go for them.

[–] LufyCZ@lemmy.world 3 points 10 months ago (1 children)

If anyone could do it, people wouldn't trust foreign institutions as much and it'd heavily disincentivise investment, which would mean slowing down economy growth.

The same economy you as well are a part of.

[–] ghostdoggtv@lemmy.world 6 points 10 months ago (3 children)

Caveat, I would be ok with Russia not trusting foreign institutions. In fact I prefer it that way.

[–] Wodge@lemmy.world 5 points 10 months ago

Russia doesn't produce much that is used in the west aside from oil. Sooner we get off that muck, the better.

[–] noobdoomguy8658@feddit.de 1 points 10 months ago

Doesn't change that much, really.

Russia, as a country, does not trust many foreign institutions already - at least the western ones. They're considered unfriendly, undesirable, and dangerous.

At the same time, Russia, as a country, is comprised of many people, including the ones that either directly represent its government in the form of deputies, ministers, and many other official figures, or use the wealth they've built in Russia through schemes and theft and murder and other crimes to build their stashes in democratic countries that have strong institutions and slow bureaucracies to protect their assets.

Most of these people have mastered doublethink, being able to switch their work and private personalities with ease: Get to the government office and pretend you absolutely hate everything to the west of Russia's borders (except Belarus, maybe), including their values, happily vote for laws opposing or hurting them (mostly because you were told to "from above"), make anti-western speeches and so on and so forth - but once you clock out, you check on your kids in London, check on your French business, check on your real estate in Spain.

They live very double-agent type of lives, and will keep living them that way. None of the people in power have any incentive to make Russia a self-sufficient country in any metric, because that's not what they wanted to be in power for, not even close - so Russia will always be interested in foreign institutions and markets and investment, because isolation is definitely not in its interest, nor is it appealing to anyone in power.

[–] OneOrTheOtherDontAskMe@lemmy.world 0 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Yeah it's not exactly a major loss to me if countries that are only held back from atrocities by economic sanctions decide not to trade with us

[–] noobdoomguy8658@feddit.de 2 points 10 months ago

As seemingly morally correct as it is, you're just talking about way too powerful markets here to dismiss that way. Maybe we, the Lemmy/fediverse crowd, may want and welcome it, but neither the governments nor a large enough portion of their electorates would sacrifice even relative economic comfort and their standard of living for that.

Not to mention that uncovering who's done what atrocities is a very big Pandora's box, opening which either blocks everyone from trading with each other, or leads to heavily-manipulated decisions and results as to whose atrocities justify embargoes and whose don't.

This whole things is neck-deep pile of shit to say the least.

[–] Aqarius@lemmy.world 3 points 10 months ago (1 children)

More like, what's gonna stop the US from seizing Chinese assets? Or, rather, why would anyone trust the US with their assets if they can just be seized when your country becomes politically problematic? The core point is that the only reason the west has so many foreign assets and investments is because the rest of the world trusts them not to be seized and sold off. It would be less damaging long term to just print more money.

[–] Ross_audio@lemmy.world 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Honestly, a regime should have to factor in the risk of losing all their money abroad if they start an illegal war or attempt genocide.

The theory of Europe relying on Russian gas as they joined the world economy was that mutual reliance prevents war because the consequences harm both sides.

Losing assets to the victims of the war you start would be a useful precedent to set and keep. The logic is the same.

The problem is that because sanctions hurt both sides we're still reluctant to use them.

We should have activated sanctions over the war in Georgia, or the first invasion of Crimea. Eventually we did as Russia marched on another Nation's capital.

Banks are never going to take an action that harms them. If we want to redirect the seized assets of Russia it will have to be governments which force them.

[–] Aqarius@lemmy.world 4 points 10 months ago (1 children)

It does make sense, but if you start down that road, would the rest of the world be justified in seizing US assets to give to Sadam or the Taliban? After all, the invasion of Georgia practically copied the justification for bombing Yugoslavia. Or, where do you draw the line? Remember the last Venezuelan elections, when they declared the other guy the winner and handed him a bunch of gold that was a loan collateral?

But beyond that, the only reason there are any assets to seize is because it's understood they won't be seized. Anyone not part of the west is an idiot if they keep relying on anything that depends on being in the west's good graces. And anyone not an idiot will seek to decouple and construct fallbacks and alternatives, and then any leverage over them is lost.

The problem isn't "it's right/wrong to do this", it's "will doing this come back to bite me in the ass at a later date?"

[–] Ross_audio@lemmy.world 1 points 10 months ago

The US should definitely have sanctions applied to it when they break international law.

At the moment there isn't much consideration of "will doing this come back to bite me in the ass at a later date" when a country commits violence or funds a foreign coup.

That's because there's too much consideration of "will doing this come back to bite me in the ass at a later date." When applying sanctions.

If the sanctions were virtually guaranteed to get triggered, the difficult decision would be for the regime doing the wrong thing in the first place.

[–] ysjet@lemmy.world 15 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

makes sense, but will never happen because the people holding those seized russian billions will never give it away. Why would they, when they've currently got it all invested and making themselves money?

[–] LufyCZ@lemmy.world 5 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Do you know that "people holding those seized assets" is actually "people looking at frozen assets with their hands tied behind their backs"?

[–] ysjet@lemmy.world 12 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

No? That's literally how banks work. You store your money there, and they protect it, manage it, etc. But this isn't harry potter, there isn't some underground vault with your name on it, they just take all your money and stick it in a giant pool they use to invest and make themselves money.

'Your' money is actually just them tracking what you actually have, and if you ask for some of it, they have the equivalent of petty cash they pay it out with. You cannot pull out massive amounts of your own money all at once without warning on the spot, because they simply will not have it available.

It's why depressions and 'bank runs' are a thing- the actual amount of cash a bank has on available is ALWAYS lower than the total number of assets they have earmarked from people, because it's all tied up in investments. If those investments go belly up, or everyone all tries to pull money out at the same, the bank has a major problem.

"Freezing" someone's assets just means that the bank isn't allowed to let someone pull money out, or transfer that money, not that the cash/investments/etc are pulled back and stuck in a vault somewhere- the BANK still has that money it's larger money pool, because it was always there from the first moment they got it.

[–] LufyCZ@lemmy.world 2 points 10 months ago

There are many banks that do not do that - Mellon for example.

But yeah, you're right, for some reason I imagined them just taking the money out and chilling on a yacht somewhere with it

[–] autotldr@lemmings.world 7 points 10 months ago

This is the best summary I could come up with:

Despite some enthusiasm from the US and UK governments, Europe's central bankers have been far more sceptical about setting a difficult legal precedent that could undermine global financial stability.

Belgium in particular happens to be home to a large portion of the frozen assets, due to its role in the clearing system for European reserves.

Proponents of the wider plan think tens of billions of dollars could be raised given some $360bn in frozen assets, and now high interest rates.

President Zelensky told the BBC on the margins of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, that Western taxpayers should not foot the bill for the war in Ukraine.

President Zelensky met with Wall Street financiers at Davos including Jamie Dimon of JP Morgan and Steven Schwarzman of Blackstone.

The Ukrainian president told the World Economic Forum that some in the West were in denial that Putin was only interested in their territory, and that his country was defending Europe, and needed more help.

The original article contains 448 words, the summary contains 164 words. Saved 63%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

[–] Jaysyn@kbin.social 4 points 10 months ago

There can be no safe haven status for terrorists.

[–] tired_n_bored@lemmy.world 1 points 10 months ago

Fuck russia

[–] maness300@lemmy.world -1 points 10 months ago

Anyone who disagrees with this is a loser who probably thought Reconstruction was a good idea.