Calls to send Russia’s frozen $350bn to the aid of Ukraine

THE West must seize the $350billion (£286billion) in frozen Russian funds and use it to arm and support Ukraine, MEPS were urged yesterday.

Bill Browder, the British financier and leading critic of Vladimir Putin, led calls in Brussels to free up the money to fund Kyiv’s war effort and to reconstruct the battered country.

Mr Browder warned that the West’s commitment to military and financial support was waning, and said seizure of the funds frozen from Putin’s “war chest” could secure Ukraine’s future.

He said: “While that military and financial support was and is currently robust, as time goes on, the West’s appetite for further support will be strained by financial considerations.”

Speaking alongside Ukrainian MPS at the European Parliament, Mr Browder said: “One single move could solve this whole problem. It is seizing the $350billion of Russian central bank reserves for the purposes of Ukraine’s defence and reconstruction.”

Mr Browder said although governments were reluctant to break with the tradition of countries having sovereign immunity, there are precedents.

The financier has long been a thorn in the side of the Russian president.

In 2009, his lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, 37, was killed in a Moscow prison after uncovering a web of corruption allegedly involving a number of senior Russian officials.

In 2012, thanks to Mr Browder’s work, the Magnitsky Act was passed in the United States to punish those who could have been involved in the death.

“At the end of the day the only thing that’s going to save Ukraine is the money,” he said. “This is the beginning of a process to soften the ground.”