The government will use the assets seized from two Russian banks, MR Bank and Prominvestbank, to rebuild the country, Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said during a conference on March 4.
The fund had been added to the budget after the banks’ liquidations on Feb. 25, 2022, the day after Russia’s full-scale invasion.
In early December, the World Bank estimated that the cost of Ukraine’s post-war reconstruction was upwards of 600 billion euros.
Following Russia’s continuous attacks on the country’s critical infrastructure since early October, the World Bank’s estimate of the cost of Ukraine’s post-war recovery had increased by over 200 billion euros since June, when the forecast was set at 350 billion euros.
In December 2022, the U.S. Senate approved an amendment allowing the transfer of seized assets belonging to Russian oligarchs to the people of Ukraine.
Prosecutor General Andriy Kostin reported on Feb. 3 that the U.S. had authorized “the first-ever transfer of the confiscated assets in the amount of $5.4 million for rebuilding Ukraine.”
“These forfeited assets follow the announcement I made last April of the indictment of designated Russian oligarch Konstantin Malofeyev on charges of sanctions evasions,” Garland said.
The proposed transfer was later confirmed by U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland following his meeting with Kostin in the U.S., as reported by CNN.
Malofeyev, owner of the Russian ultranationalist Tsargrad TV channel, has been accused of funding Russian proxies in Russian-occupied Crimea in 2014.
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