Margus Tzahkna (Photo: Tingshu Wang / Reuters)
Estonian Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna said at the Munich Security Conference that Estonia has a law on the confiscation of frozen assets of Russian individuals and legal entities for their further transfer to Ukraine.
“This is a certain framework, a system that allows us to act, but it takes time to implement. If the conflict is finalized, the damage is fixed in international instances in The Hague, Ukraine sues Russia and Moscow refuses to pay compensation, then we will be able to use the frozen assets through this mechanism,” Tsahkna said.
He did not rule out the full confiscation of assets.
We would like to point out that in the spring of 2024, Estonia came out with a law that allows the transfer of Russian assets frozen in the country to Ukraine as prepayment of damages. Tallinn reported that about 30m euros were frozen in Estonia after the start of the military operation in Ukraine.
How Brussels reacted
Last fall, the EU discussed the possibility of using frozen Russian assets to provide a “reparation loan” to Ukraine. This idea was opposed by Belgium, where the Euroclear depository, which holds most of the frozen Russian assets in the EU, is located. The depository itself was also critical of this initiative.
In mid-December, EU leaders decided to continue financing Kiev in a different way – with the help of an interest-free loan from the EU budget totaling 90bn euros.
