Mr. Biden and Western nations have been reluctant to confiscate the $300 billion or so in Russian reserve funds parked in Western financial institutions. They were frozen when Russia invaded, but there they sit two years later collecting dust and interest. It’s almost as if Mr. Biden and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz imagine that the money might be an inducement for Vladimir Putin to negotiate a peace deal and rejoin the civilized world.
In any case asset-seizure precedents have already been set. President George H.W. Bush issued an executive order in 1992 that compelled every U.S. bank to hand Iraqi sovereign assets to the Federal Reserve. Some $50 billion in Iraqi funds were paid as recompense for Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait. The U.S. also froze and then transferred for humanitarian purposes some $3.5 billion of assets belonging to the Afghanistan Central Bank in 2022.
Western sanctions have failed to change Mr. Putin’s behavior, and seizing Russia’s sovereign assets won’t either. But it would increase the price that the Kremlin pays for its murderous attempt at national conquest. Mr. Putin probably thinks Mr. Biden and European leaders are too afraid to do it. All the more reason to open the Russian bank vault.
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