Biden and Macron Agree on Using Frozen Russian Assets for Ukraine

Joe Biden announced that during his visit to France, he reached an agreement with the country's president regarding the use of profits from seized Russian assets to aid Ukraine. On Sunday, June 9, the U.S. president responded affirmatively to reporters' questions about whether he had negotiated with Emmanuel Macron on this issue and reached a conclusion. He did not provide further details about the agreement. The G7 industrialized nations and the European Union are examining how to utilize frozen Russian assets in Western countries to financially support Ukraine through 2025. Over 260 billion euros of the Russian central bank's assets have been seized worldwide, with a significant portion in the European Union. The annual profit from these funds ranges from 2.5 to 3.5 billion euros. The European Union states that these profit amounts are not legally considered debts owed to Russia and are regarded as 'windfall wealth.' The idea of using these funds is being pursued under U.S. leadership to utilize the profits from frozen Russian assets for a large $50 billion loan to Ukraine. Russia claims this action is considered 'theft.' The use of Russian asset profits has raised concerns among some countries, but last week a U.S. Treasury official stated that the U.S. and its G7 allies are making progress toward finalizing this action. Senior officials from the seven industrialized nations discussed the use of frozen Russian assets for Ukraine's benefit in Italy earlier this year and stated they had reached a 'political agreement.' Meanwhile, Ukraine announced on Sunday that its forces targeted a state-of-the-art Russian fighter jet at an airbase 600 kilometers from the front line. This incident occurred shortly after Western allies of Kyiv allowed the use of their weapons for limited attacks inside Russian territory. However, it is unclear whether the alleged Ukrainian attack that destroyed a Russian Su-57 fighter jet was carried out with Western weapons. The Ukrainian military intelligence service has released satellite images of a Russian military base, claiming they were recorded after the attack. If the success of this attack is confirmed, it would be the first time since the beginning of Russia's military invasion of Ukraine that Kyiv has managed to destroy a Moscow Su-57.