US Pushes Europe to Unfreeze Russian Assets for Peace Bid
Citing four people briefed on the matter, the paper said the idea surfaced last week at meetings in Miami between peace negotiators for US President Donald Trump and officials from Ukraine, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, the European Union and NATO.
US special envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner laid out several possible mechanisms for freeing the funds, according to the report. One option would route the assets into a new special-purpose financial vehicle operating under US supervision.
European delegates turned the proposal down, the paper reported. They said the move caught European capitals and Kyiv off guard and raised doubts about how Washington intends to pressure Moscow to end its war against Ukraine.
A US official told the paper that frozen Russian assets had been discussed as one element of a comprehensive peace agreement, but that how the money would be released and how it would be spent were still under consideration. The official added that a range of proposals on using the immobilized assets after the war had been put forward over time.
Ukrainian officials involved in the talks said they had also raised the issue with their US counterparts at earlier meetings, the report said.
Western governments froze roughly €260 billion ($302 billion) in Russian sovereign assets in 2022 in response to President Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine, with most of the funds held in the EU. The assets have since become a central point of contention among Kyiv’s Western backers, who are weighing how to pay for Ukraine’s defense and reconstruction while making Russia bear the financial cost of its invasion.
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