House members Democrat Adam Schiff and Republican Brian Fitzpatrick sent a letter to President Joe Biden on Tuesday urging him to transfer frozen Russian assets to Kiev to help support the country’s defense and the humanitarian situation in Ukraine. .
The cost of the war unleashed by Moscow in Ukraine is significant, both in human lives and in financial resources. According to a recent assessment, Ukraine’s current fiscal needs are estimated at $5 billion per month, and the recovery will be a colossal undertaking, expected to cost $411 billion over 10 years.
Citing the opportunities offered by the International Emergency Economic Powers Act and precedents such as President George W. Bush’s transfer of $1.7 billion in funds from the Iraqi government to compensate victims of terrorism, the letter calls on President Biden to reallocate Russian central bank assets. frozen under US sanctions for providing much-needed aid to Ukraine.
“At this critical time, when every dollar can help change the outcome of the war, we urge you to use your authority to transfer billions of dollars of Russian Central Bank assets frozen under U.S. sanctions to meet the needs urgent military and humanitarian aid in Ukraine,” stated in the lawmakers’ appeal. “As Foreign Minister of Ukraine (Dmytro) Kuleba said during a recent roundtable, ‘the aggressor must repair all the damage done to Ukraine’.
“It is clear to the international community who is the aggressor and who must bear the costs of this illegal war – it is Russia,” the letter also states.
The appeal was also signed by Congressmen Lloyd Doggett, Barbara Lee, Steve Cohen, Mike Quigley, Donald Payne Jr., Eric Swalwell, Norma Torres, Kevin Mullin and Eleanor Holmes Norton.
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