Could the Group of Seven (G7) deal to mobilize Russia’s immobilized reserves for Ukraine now be upended by a risk-weighting exercise? Senior US officials have been invited to join this week’s meeting of the European Union (EU) member states’ top representatives in Brussels in one of the last attempts to secure US participation in the
JUST IN Uno, due, tre. As the Group of Seven (G7) summit kicked off Thursday in Apulia, Italy, US President Joe Biden presented three big steps to help Ukraine in its ongoing fight against Russian aggression. First, G7 leaders agreed to send Ukraine fifty billion dollars that will be paid for by future interest from
From Russia, with interest. The Group of Seven (G7) leaders announced Thursday that they had agreed on a plan to send fifty billion dollars to Ukraine in the coming months by pulling forward interest income on Russian assets that had been immobilized in Western countries since February 2022 (a novel idea that Atlantic Council research
Interest in the interest is growing. Over the past three days, Group of Seven (G7) finance ministers met in Stresa, Italy, on the shore of Lake Maggiore, to discuss what to do with a major pile of money. Following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, G7 nations blocked around $300 billion in Russian assets
Here’s the 4-1-1. Four bills are heading toward a vote in the US House, likely Saturday, intended to provide additional aid to Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan—more than ninety billion dollars in all. One man, Speaker Mike Johnson, is orchestrating this four-part package, which would also back efforts to seize Russian assets to support Ukraine, among
Imagine a country exporting nearly 90 percent of the wheat and corn it did before losing control of a sixth of its territory. Consider facing daily air raids targeting vital infrastructure while still keeping the lights on and the internet running. These are some of the many impressive achievements of the Ukrainian economy in the
Shortly after the second anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24 comes the second anniversary of Western countries imposing an unprecedented package of sanctions on Russia. The boldest measure within this—the immobilization of the reserves that Russia’s central bank was storing in the West—was designed to cause such shock and awe to
The numbers don’t lie. Two years after Russian President Vladimir Putin launched his full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, the humanitarian and economic costs to Ukraine have been immense. But the war has also wreaked devastating self-inflicted wounds on Russia, including catastrophic casualty rates, growing economic isolation from the West, and the mass
For eighteen months, half of Russia’s six hundred billion dollars in foreign exchange reserves have been out of the Kremlin’s reach. The coordinated blocking by Group of Seven (G7) powers and like-minded capitals has worked to this extent. But the debate concerning how to put the funds to good use remains unresolved. Influential voices have
The “August curse” has spared the Kremlin this year, but the same cannot be said of Russia’s central bank. The month has periodically been the venue of political surprises in Russia, but Russian President Vladimir Putin has apparently shot down any doubt that he retains full power. However, a massive exchange rate crash brought on
