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'Shameful failure': Senior senator slams EU attempt to use frozen Russian assets

It was earlier reported that the European Council’s Legal Service said that the bloc had the legal authority to temporarily invest at least €33.8 billion of Russian Central Bank assets to help pay for a plan to rebuild Ukraine

MOSCOW, January 27. /TASS/. Europe failed in its attempt to legalize the use of frozen Russian assets for efforts to rebuild Ukraine, a senior Russian senator said on Friday.

"Poor 'European lawyers' failed to find 'clear legal grounds' to arrest Russian assets (however, they were arrested in the EU without reason), but they found an opportunity to `temporarily’ use Russian assets for the reconstruction of Ukraine," Chairman of Russia’s Federation Council (the upper house of parliament) Committee on Constitutional Legislation and State Building Andrey Klishas wrote on Telegram as he slammed the attempt at "legalizing the stolen" funds as "a shameful failure."

Earlier, Bloomberg reported, citing people familiar with the matter, that the European Council’s Legal Service said that the bloc had the legal authority to temporarily invest at least €33.8 billion of Russian Central Bank assets to help pay for a plan to rebuild Ukraine. However, EU officials and some member countries worry about the legal risks of such an effort and the precedent that could be set, specifically of the use of frozen Russian Central Bank assets, the people told Bloomberg. According to the agency, the EU’s executive arm is wary about the legal justifications for using frozen assets and the overall complexity of the move, as it believes that any plan should be carried out in cooperation with the G7.

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