President Trump’s threat to abandon Ukraine added urgency to plans to fund security or reconstruction with the roughly $300 billion owned by Russia’s central bank.

President Trump’s rancorous threat to abandon Ukraine is stoking support for a long-debated proposal to use billions of dollars in frozen Russian assets to buy weapons for Ukraine and finance its reconstruction.

The money — roughly $300 billion owned by Russia’s central bank — was frozen by the United States, the European Union, Britain and others after Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022. The aim was to punish President Vladimir V. Putin for his unprovoked attack and to cut off funds he could use to wage war.

As the war grinds on into its fourth year, a growing number of officials in Europe and elsewhere have been calling for the money to be released to directly compensate Ukraine.

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  • xorEnglish
    2•3 hours ago

    Well yes, I am aware that Russia has violated numerous treaties. But I’m not arguing for the treaties to be the same, not even for a peace treaty to happen now. Nor am I saying we shouldn’t give some portion of that money to Ukraine.

    Are you of the opinion that trump can bring peace to Ukraine quickly?

    I feel like I’m being pretty clear that I don’t think anything close to this, no? But your questions seem to be on the basis that I do.

    The point I am actually making is that at some point in the future there will be some form of peace negotiations to end the war. That’s not coming from a Trump-esque “peace now because I say so” angle, but from a “every conflict ends in some form of settlement eventually” angle. The fact that this money would act as significant leverage in that scenario means that this isn’t just magic free money, but a tradeoff to be made.

    That doesn’t mean it’s the wrong tradeoff, necessarily, just that to actually decide whether or not that’s the case, you do need to consider that it is one.

    • @[email protected]English
      3•3 hours ago

      My point is that history shows it’s not really wise to negotiate, or go for treaties or agreements with Russia.

      Whilst strategically it would be good to make the war stop it would only be a temporary and remedial solution not really solving the root cause of the problem.

      So why do it?

      • xorEnglish
        1•2 hours ago

        Well because every war ends with a peace treaty. Ignoring that fact now and making it harder to do so in the future just because a peace treaty isn’t viable now.

        All I’m arguing for is making decisions while aware of all the factors? I don’t understand what you’re disagreeing with, really