The European Commission called the amount of frozen assets associated with Russia

The countries of the European Union ( EU ) as of the end of May froze the private assets of Russians in the amount of €24.1 billion, writes Welt, citing data from the European Commission. For comparison, as of the end of 2022, the EU had an asset freeze of €18.9 billion.

Under sanctions are 473 Russians and 205 companies from RUSSIA.

In addition to private assets, the EU also froze the assets of the Bank of Russia. The European Commission estimates their size at over €200 billion ($215 billion). In March last year, Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said that due to the sanctions of the European Union, the United States and other countries, Russia has lost access to almost half of its gold and foreign exchange reserves. As a result , Moscow cannot use about $300 billion out of about $640 billion, he said.

There have been repeated calls in the West and in Kyiv to use frozen Russian assets to rebuild Ukraine. The HEAD of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, confirmed that the goal of the EC is not to freeze, but to confiscate these funds. However, European norms only allow freezing, so Brussels is working on an appropriate legal framework, she said.

Russian President Vladimir Putin considers freezing assets in the West a theft. “Theft of other people’s assets has never brought anyone to good, especially those who are engaged in this unseemly business,” he warned in May 2022.