Russia’s frozen reserves: Lavrov calls Borrells proposal theft, such behavior has become a habit.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov referred on Tuesday to the proposal voiced by EU chief diplomat Josep Borrell to hand over frozen Russian assets to Ukraine as "theft."

"One might even say this is theft, which they don't even try to hide," Lavrov said at a press conference after a meeting with his Algerian counterpart, Ramtane Lamamra, when asked to comment on Borrell's idea.

Lavrov noted that such behavior has become a habit for the West, citing the situation with the seizure of Afghan assets abroad, which the Western countries "want to use not for the needs of the citizens of Afghanistan but for the goals that are unrelated to the restoration of the country."
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*** Josep Borrell suggests using Russia’s foreign exchange reserves to rebuild Ukraine.

EU countries should consider confiscating frozen Russian foreign exchange reserves to cover Ukraine’s reconstruction costs after the war, reported the FT.

According to Borrel, since the Taliban came to power in Afghanistan, the US has taken control of billions of dollars in assets owned by the Central Bank of Afghanistan to make payments to victims of terrorism and pay for humanitarian aid.

He added that it would be logical to consider such steps with Russia’s frozen reserves to finance Ukraine’s reconstruction. At the start of the Russian-Ukrainian war, the EU and its allies in the West froze hundreds of billions of dollars in foreign exchange reserves held by Russia’s central bank.

Since the war, Western sanctions against the Russian Federation’s Central Bank has frozen about $300B of its more than $600B in foreign exchange reserves.