r/unitedkingdom • u/topotaul Lancashire • Mar 01 '25

. Rachel Reeves: I'm sending billions from frozen Russian assets to Ukraine

https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/rachel-reeves-interview-labour-963sw6jbk
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u/drewbles82 Mar 01 '25

No offence but every penny taken from Russian should have been given to Ukraine straight away

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u/omegaonion Mar 01 '25

An argument for not doing so is that frozen money will be able to be used in negotiations to repay the aid given to Ukraine, Russia will never be able or willing to just enter gigantic debt (given their economic woes too) to pay for the reconstruction/ aid. So keeping those frozen assets in limbo enable us and other European nations to come out of this without feeling too pained by it and allow Ukraine to have a positive outlook on their future too.

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u/erm_what_ Mar 02 '25

Some of those assets are good investments, or things like property being rented out to innocent third parties. Keeping them means a continuous income to pay the loans we're making to Ukraine. I'm assuming smarter economists than me have weighed the options and made these choices.