Confiscated oligarch property fails to cover damage to Ukraine
CONFISCATION OF OLIGARCH PROPERTY
It is impossible to put a price on the harm Russia has caused Ukrainians in the last year. No amount of reparations, aid or foreign direct investment will bring back a single killed soldier or murdered civilian. However, attempts to estimate how much it would cost just to rebuild basic infrastructure suggests we are looking at a colossal sum.
The United Nations says damage to Ukraine’s heating and power infrastructure alone now amounts to more than $10 billion. Taking into account indirect losses — from people losing their jobs, as just one example — the damage was estimated at up to $600 billion in March, and it’s increasing all the time.
As such, it feels pretty feeble to be celebrating the delivery of $5.4 million — less than a ten-thousandth of that total damage, or, to put it a different way, enough for one Bayraktar drone — to the Ukrainians, but hopefully it’s a sign of greater things to come.
- "While this represents the United States’ first transfer of forfeited Russian funds for the rebuilding of Ukraine, it will not be the last," said U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland.
The money belonged to Konstantin Malofeyev, who was charged with violating U.S. sanctions in April 2022. In case you think it looks suspiciously nimble that he was charged just two months after Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, the sanctions in question dated back to the initial invasion eight years previously.