Japan may transfer income from Russian assets to Ukraine – details

Flags of Ukraine and Japan. Photo: president.gov.ua

Japan plans to allocate more than $3 billion to Ukraine from proceeds from frozen Russian assets. This was reported by the Japanese news agency Kyodo, citing diplomats. The loan is part of a $50 billion package agreed by G7 leaders. The United States and the European Union will provide Ukraine with $20 billion each, and the remaining $10 billion will be shared by Japan, Great Britain and Canada. Now the aid package must be approved by finance ministers of the G20 countries in Brazil in July, FREEDOM reports.

According to the Japanese news agency Kyodo, citing diplomats, Tokyo is in a hurry to complete the development of a system for implementing aid by the end of 2024. We are talking about an amount of more than $3 billion of frozen Russian assets.

“European support amounts to 50 billion euros. American support – $60 billion, and now a G7 package of $50 billion. And the message is that it is not European taxpayers who pay for the damage that Putin causes with this aggressive war, but Putin because he makes a profit from immobilized assets in Europe that service this $50 billion loan to Ukraine,” said European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.

According to the French newspaper Le Monde, a political agreement on the implementation of a 50 billion loan has been reached. The technical aspects of the agreement are now being discussed. According to DW, the G7 countries expect to find a way to pay Ukraine a large loan in advance and secure financing until 2025.

“The following model is being developed: loans totaling $50 billion should be provided directly to Ukraine, and it, in turn, will repay them using the money that the European Union will transfer to it from the interest accrued on blocked Russian assets,” writes DW, with citing a senior EU official.

The European Commission is rapidly working on its part of the G7 agreement to allocate $50 billion to Ukraine. As European Commissioner for Economic Affairs Paolo Gentiloni noted, Brussels will soon present a draft plan. According to him, the EU wants to give a clear signal to Moscow that the G7 countries and other countries of the world will continue to support Ukraine as long as necessary.

“These loans will be based on the profits received from the immobilization of Russian assets. Of course, it is important to work on the proposal. And that’s exactly what the commission does. We are trying to do this as soon as possible. Why? Because, as you know, the mechanism that the commission proposes is based, in terms of guarantees, on our margin of safety for the European budget. But the ability to use this reserve as a guarantee is only possible until the end of this year. It is for this reason that we need to complete the entire process,” explained European Commissioner for Economic and Financial Affairs Paolo Gentiloni.

Brussels is striving to provide more predictable funding for Ukraine, including on the eve of the US elections, Paolo Gentiloni emphasized.

On July 14, the G7 leaders at the summit gave political consent to the use of excess profits from frozen Russian assets in their jurisdictions. This amount amounts to $50 billion per year. The package will be formally approved at the meeting of G7 finance ministers and G20 central bank governors at the end of July in Rio de Janeiro.

Read also: Russia running out of its Soviet arms supplies, — The Economist

Let us remind you that Japan has entered the final stage of agreeing to provide $3.3 billion to support Ukraine at the expense of frozen Russian assets.