As a result of Russian aggression against Ukraine, the European Union has frozen assets of oligarchs and Russian banks. The chairwoman of the SPD youth organization, Jessica Rosenthal, calls on Brussels to hand over the money to Ukraine: “Russia should pay for these acts!”
Juso chairwoman Jessica Rosenthal demands the immediate payment of frozen Russian funds to Ukraine. “After the EU froze more than 300 billion euros in Russian assets, this money must now quickly go to Ukraine as emergency aid. Whether it’s for the construction of civil infrastructure or the purchase of equipment – Ukraine can use this money well,” she said Members of the Bundestag, who also chair the young SPD, to ntv.de. “Regardless of whether it’s hospitals or schools, Putin, in his destructive frenzy, has civilian infrastructure in Ukraine bombed on a massive scale. We say: Russia should pay for these acts!”
Rosenthal complained that Russia was “not taking casualties into account even in the second year of its illegal war”. “Therefore, the EU must clarify immediately how Russian funds can be paid out to Ukraine,” said the 30-year-old. The Social Democratic Vice-President of the EU Parliament, Katarina Barley, made a similar statement in mid-February. Speaking to the editorial network Germany, Barley spoke out in favor of “transferring frozen Russian assets to Ukraine as early reparations payments.”
On February 24, 2022, on the orders of President Vladimir Putin, Russia attacked Ukraine from the north, east and south. Although the immediate objectives of the Russian invasion were missed and Russian forces were repelled at least in northern and north-eastern Ukraine, Russia occupies about 20 percent of Ukrainian state territory. In the past twelve months, large parts of the country’s civilian infrastructure, including entire cities such as Mariupol, have been destroyed by the Russian war of aggression.
The EU responded in several steps with an unprecedented package of sanctions aimed at Russian state institutions as well as at private individuals who profit from the war, propagate it or who have acquired large fortunes through their closeness to Putin. Moscow considers the seizures and exclusion of certain Russian banks from the international payments system to be illegal.
Note for the reader: A detailed interview with Jessica Rosenthal on the occasion of the anniversary of Olaf Scholz’ speech about the change of the era will appear on ntv.de on Sunday morning.
