The United States transferred confiscated assets to Estonia to support Ukraine
18 February 2024 06:37
The United States has transferred almost $500,000 of confiscated Russian assets to Estonia in favour of Ukraine. This is stated in a statement by the US Department of Justice, according to 
The funds were confiscated as part of a case of an illegal procurement network. For example, an attempt was made to import a US-made grinder to Russia for use in the defence and nuclear proliferation sectors.
on 14 February, a Latvian citizen, one of the suspects in the case, pleaded guilty to violating US export laws and regulations.
Currently, the confiscated funds cannot be directly transferred to Ukraine, so they are being transferred to Estonia. The country will use the money for a project to accelerate damage assessment and repair of the Ukrainian power grid.
This is the first transfer of funds from the United States to a foreign ally in favour of Ukraine.
In total, this is the second time the United States has provided Ukraine with confiscated Russian assets, the first time the amount was $5.4 million.
It is worth noting that in 2022, the EU, the US, Japan, and Canada froze approximately $300 billion of the Russian central bank’s assets. Of these, only $5-6 billion are in the United States, the majority are in Europe, with a significant portion in the Belgian central securities depository Euroclear.
Former World Bank chief Robert Zoellick called on Western countries not to be afraid to use Russia’s frozen assets for the benefit of Ukraine, stressing the strategic advantage of such actions.
