FROM OUR CORRESPONDENT
TORONTO – It's an important passage from Joe Biden during the meeting with Giorgia Meloni. The issue of the flow of Russian billions frozen around the world, not just in Europe, was raised very clearly on Friday in the White House between the President of the United States and our Prime Minister. And Biden just as clearly refers to his “legacy,” his political inheritance, and links it precisely to the determination of the approximately 350 billion Russian dollars that could go to the government in Kiev as compensation for war damage.
Biden's reasoning is as follows: a decision must be made quickly (the ideal date would be the June meeting of heads of state and government in Puglia) to clarify the fate of the billions of Russian dollars frozen in various banks around the world are. Not just in Europe, because at least another 50 billion are tied up between Japanese, Canadian and American institutions. A decision that Biden considers historic and necessary, and it is not for nothing that he speaks of a personal “legacy” of his political career and also hypothesizes that at the end of the year it will be Trump and not him at the helm of the leading economic power of the World.
There is no pessimism in the words of the American president: he pretends to be convinced of renewed victory, but the transition is offered in the same way as that of a long-time, experienced politician who knows full well that there are no certainties, and that a Plan B – given the possibility that the elections will be won by those who have declared that Moscow should attack the European states that are behind on payments to NATO (Biden's reference to Trump's words are literal) – must be put in place and closed quickly.
It is no coincidence that on the sidelines of a conversation with Giorgia Meloni that lasted well over an hour, the progress made in the dialogue between G7 states and various international financial bodies was discussed. There is also a hint of what could become a G7 decision in June. A financial and legal plan that is taking shape in these hours: Ukraine could issue government bonds worth – according to some estimates – around $50 billion in connection with the war damage suffered by Moscow over the next six to seven years Year.
The guarantee of these securities for the buyers (which of course includes the G7 states, among others) would be the previously frozen Russian funds. If at the end of the war Russia did not pay for the damage caused to the Ukrainian economy – damage that the World Bank has so far estimated at over $480 million – there would be a legal instrument to recover at least $350 billion from Moscow, which they would not go to Ukraine, but to the countries that subscribed to the Ukrainian bonds.
In addition, in the final declaration of the first G7 meeting last week in Kiev, France and Germany also signed undifferentiated words: “Russia's obligations under international law to make amends for the damage caused are clear.” In this document, the seven countries of the forum, chaired by Italy, have signed The last paragraph almost put a future commitment on paper: until the summit in Puglia they will continue to work to “ensure all possible legal avenues under international law that these Russian sovereign wealth funds are used to support Ukraine.”