PRAGUE: The European Union has frozen Russian assets worth $13.8 billion since the country invaded Ukraine on February 24, EU Justice Commissioner Didier Reynders said on Tuesday.

“For the moment, we have frozen — coming from oligarchs and other entities — 13.8 billion euros ($13.8bn), so it’s quite huge,” Reynders told reporters in Prague.

“But I must say that a very large part of it, more than 12 billion ... is coming from five member states,” he said ahead of an informal meeting of EU justice ministers held by the Czech Republic, which holds the rotating EU presidency.

He refused to name the five countries but added that he expected the other members of the 27-member bloc to step up efforts soon.

German Finance Minis­ter Christian Lin­dner put the value of assets frozen by Ger­many alone at 4.48 billion euros in mid-June.

Ukrainian Justice Minis­ter Denys Maliuska said in Prague that the assets should be used to cover compensation for war damages.

“Currently they are protected by sovereign immunity but our understanding is that assets of a state (that) started a war, committed aggression, shall not be protected by sovereign immunity,” he said.

“We are suffering from economic losses and it does not make sense to cover all those losses by Ukrainian or European taxpayers’ money,” Maliuska added.

At the end of June, an international sanctions task force said its members, including several EU countries, had blocked $30bn in assets belonging to Russian oligarchs and officials.

Published in Dawn, July 13th, 2022