The European Union intends to prioritize Russian assets worth hundreds of billions of euros as part of an unprecedented confiscation project, the operation’s coordinator, senior Swedish official Anders Anlid, explained to Agence France Presse on Friday.

In a dialogue with AFP in Stockholm, the official admitted that there is “nothing simple” about the plan, but that Europe intends to be “innovative”, according to Agerpres.

Russian assets are everywhere, from luxury yachts to central bank foreign reserves, but getting hold of them legally is not easy. “It is difficult to find acceptable legal remedies,” explained the head of the EU working group, which met for the first time last week.

Russian citizens who have been sanctioned following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine are currently challenging the reasons for the measures taken against them in court. One of the illustrative cases is the one in which, in early March, the Court of the European Union suspended part of the sanctions against the Russian Formula 1 pilot Nikita Mazepin, the son of the owner and CEO of the Uralchem ​​chemical company.

“This proves that our European Union is based on the rule of law,” Anlid emphasized regarding such an approach.

AFP notes that this is the first time in history that the EU does not simply freeze assets, but intends to confiscate them and redistribute the capital or at least the interest. Even globally, there are several precedents for this, such as the seizure of Iraqi assets by the United States when Iraq was ruled by the dictator Saddam Hussein.

Anlid was appointed last month and does not risk naming the date when Ukraine will receive the first money taken from the Russians. “We hope to get results during our presidency,” he said, referring to Sweden’s EU presidency until the end of June. “However, these are complex files. There will be short-term and long-term aspects,” insisted the Swedish diplomat, who also worked on the first sanctions packages against Russia after the annexation of Crimea in 2014. “We need to be a little more innovative if we want to make progress,” he added.

Anders Anlid, head of the EU working group on confiscation of Russian assets (Photo: Jonathan Nackstrand / AFP / Profimedia Images)

Lawyers distinguish between private assets frozen by Western governments, such as an oligarch’s yacht, and public assets, such as the foreign reserves of the Russian central bank. The latter are larger – almost $300 billion, according to the European Union – and are also easier to confiscate from a legal point of view.

As for private assets, legal remedies in Western countries allow for final confiscation only under very strict conditions, such as in cases where they originate from crimes. In the United States, Congress is trying to figure out how to change the law to allow permanent forfeiture, but the executive branch, led by President Joe Biden, remains cautious.

One option would be to confiscate only the income or interest, not the assets themselves, Anlid said. Its working group says the EU has not yet identified the relevant assets, but hopes progress will be made by the end of May. “What assets are we talking about and where are they located? It is still not as clear as we would like,” the Swedish official said.

Confiscation is also complicated by the large number of private assets, which in many cases are protected by shell companies.

Despite all the difficulties, the diplomat believes that it is “natural” to pay the aggressors for “correcting the brutal destruction of Ukraine”, which continues today.

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