Ahead of Tuesday's meeting between U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff and leader Vladimir Putin in Moscow, Kostin assured that “Russia is ready to make concessions in (peace) negotiations, although reaching an agreement will take some time.”
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What did Andrei Kostin say about the loan to Ukraine?
What consequences does Russia announce in connection with the use of Russian assets?
What was the position of the Prime Minister of Belgium regarding Russian assets?
Is Russia ready to make concessions in peace negotiations?
The oligarch said that the Russian side “can do without the money” frozen by European countries, but the problem is that these funds “can be used for war, not for peace.”
The oligarch announces Moscow's response
“It's convenient to wage war not only with other people's hands, but also with other people's money, that's the finesse of Europe,” Kostin said. He announced that Russia would respond to the seizure of state assets by filing lawsuits in Russian and international courts. He also suggested that a lawsuit might be brought before the UN judicial body.
In October, the EU summit failed to adopt a plan to use USD 162 billion. frozen Russian state assets in Europe as loans to Ukraine for defense and the regular state budget. Belgium did not support it.
The US peace plan published in the media in November proposed that USD 100 billion of the frozen funds would be invested in the reconstruction of Ukraine, and the rest would be transferred to a joint US-Russian fund.
In Kostin's opinion, Russia is ready to make compromises on the peace agreement “because there is no such thing as a one-way move in the negotiations.”
The Russian oligarch has been subject to economic sanctions by the US government since 2018, and since the start of full-scale Russian aggression against Ukraine in 2022, Kostin has been placed on lists of persons subject to sanctions issued, among others, by EU countries, Great Britain and Switzerland.
Considerations on Russian assets
The President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, announced on Monday, after a conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, that this week the EC will present legislative proposals on further financing of Ukraine.
On that day, EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas stated that granting a reparations loan to Ukraine using Russian assets would strengthen Europe's position vis-à-vis Moscow. She added that Russia may treat the lack of financial support from the EU as an incentive to demand greater concessions from Ukraine.
Last week, the Prime Minister of Belgium, Bart de Wever, sent a letter to EU leaders, including the Prime Minister of Poland, Donald Tusk, in which he stated that the use of frozen Russian assets to finance a loan to Ukraine would make it impossible to conclude a peace agreement with Russia.
