London-based American investor Bill Browder says people call him the “number one enemy” of Russian President Vladimir Putin and, more recently, an official “Friend of Ukraine.”
Browder has spent the last 13 years campaigning to freeze Putin’s assets hidden in the West. Now, he’s fighting for them to
Would like to see some conversation here regarding handing Russian frozen assets to Ukraine. A lot of loud voices advocating for it but it seems like a bit of a can of worms that you can’t open without it being in a peace treaty first.
@Ninmi It will have to be done probably as russia is unlikely to voluntarily pay any reparations to Ukraine even if the regime changes. The problem with that currently though is the lack of a legal basis for seizing those assets. For confiscating privately-owned assets in most cases you would have to trace them to a specific crime which might be hard to do. And for confiscating state-owned assets new mechanisms have to be implemented that would account for sovereign immunity implications and implications for western companies operating in countries with undemocratic regimes. And it looks like we’ll have to either force russia to agree to pay reparations in an eventual peace treaty and use the frozen assets to cover for some of it or wait for an international tribunal to award Ukraine damages which would potentially alleviate some of the legal concerns. As much as I want that money to go to Ukraine right now, I don’t quite see it happening before the end of the war