News & Comment

When President Putin ordered Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Kyiv’s western allies assembled unprecedented sanctions packages to target the Kremlin’s access to international funds. That included freezing an estimated $300bn of central bank assets, the majority of which are held in Europe. As domestic enthusiasm for Ukrainian aid has dimmed in some western nations, the question about how to use these frozen funds has risen rapidly up the international agenda. On today’s episode, Katya is joined by Ben Chu, BBC Newsnight’s Economics Editor, and Tom Keatinge, from the Centre for Finance and Security at the RUSI think tank. They discuss whether new US legislation could pressure European leaders to make a decision on the fate of the frozen assets, and consider the risk of retaliation by Russia.

Reuters on April 25 reported from Washington that China was providing moorage for a U.S.-sanctioned Russian cargo ship implicated in North Korean arms transfers to Russia, according to satellite images obtained by Reuters from Britain's Royal United Services Institute (RUSI).

The FT previously reported on research by the Royal United Services Institute, a London think tank, which showed the first documented direct seaborne deliveries of Russian oil since 2017.