“US Confiscated Funds Sent to Help Rebuild Ukraine Amid Russian Invasion”

Confiscated from Russia, the funds will be used to rebuild Ukraine. On Wednesday, May 10, US Attorney General Merrick Garland announced that he had transferred Russian funds confiscated in a kitty intended for help ukraine rebuild. This is the first transfer of this type since the start of the war in Ukraine in February 2022. In February, Merrick Garland authorized the transfer to Ukraine of 5.3 million dollars seized from the accounts of the oligarch. Russian Konstantin Malofeev.

“I had authorized the transfer of these funds (…) to remedy the evils of the unjust war” led by Moscow in Ukraine, he recalls in a press release. The announcement was made in February. The sum “has now been transferred to the State Department and will be dedicated to this cause,” he adds. “This is the first transfer by the United States of seized Russian funds to rebuild Ukraine, but not the last,” he wrote.

READ ALSOWashington to transfer funds seized from Russian oligarch to Ukraine

A transfer not so easy

The United States announced in March 2022, shortly after the start of the invasion, the creation of a cell dedicated to the pursuit of ” corrupt russian oligarchs and of all those who would violate the sanctions adopted by Washington against Moscow. Since then, the Americans have sanctioned and blocked ships and planes worth more than a billion dollars, as well as freezing hundreds of millions of assets of Russian elites in American accounts.

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In particular, in April 2022 they seized funds belonging to Russian billionaire Konstantin Malofeïev, who is considered to be one of the main sources of funding for pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine. At the same time, the American courts had charged him with having sought to acquire and secretly manage media outlets across Europe, in violation of the sanctions against him.

The Democratic President Joe Biden had wanted from the start of the conflict to allocate the seized assets to aid for Ukraine. To do so, however, the authorities must prove that they are linked to an illegal activity, which is not always easy.

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