Slovak MEP Lubos Blaha says the blocking of sovereign Russian funds constitutes "theft," adding that it is hypocritical of the United States especially since nobody froze U.S. funds following the invasion of Iraq at the turn of the century. Blaha also wants EU authorities to stop sending money and weapons to Ukraine.
It is estimated that the U.S., the European Union (EU) and their allies have frozen around $300 billion in assets belonging to the Russian state since the start of the Ukraine conflict in early 2022. Most of those stolen funds, estimated at around $214 billion, are currently being held at Euroclear, a Brussels-based clearinghouse.
"The freezing of Russian assets is theft and robbery," Blaha said at a European Parliament plenary session in Strasbourg this week. "You can find hundreds of justifications for this, but this is theft."
"Europe didn't steal American assets at the time of unjustified aggression against Iraq. Will we do the same with Israeli assets?"
After a visit earlier this month to Moscow, Blaha called on EU lawmakers to use "common sense" in the way they are handling the Russia-Ukraine conflict. Blaha confronted them directly by telling them to "stop sending Ukraine weapons and billions of euros," both of which are needed in the EU.
"This is unfair to our own citizens," he added.
(Related: Did you hear? Germany is planning to stop sending military aid to Ukraine over the fiasco with the Nord Stream pipeline sabotage incident.)
Russia responding by freezing assets of unfriendly countries
As Blaha was calling for this, the European Parliament backed the idea of giving Ukraine a $38 billion loan using frozen Russian assets as collateral for repayment. As of mid-July, the frozen funds have generated $3.7 billion in interest, according to Euroclear.
The only way to "stop Ukraine's agony," as Blaha put it, "is to put an end to NATO expansion." He also decried the escalating Russophobia throughout the West, calling the statements many are making against Russia "militaristic and hateful."
Fellow Slovak MEP Milan Uhrik echoed Blaha's statement with one of his own blasting Ukraine as an authoritarian police state where the supposedly "free" and "democratic" West continues to dump cash and weapons.
"They canceled elections, they cracked down on the opposition, they canceled the rights of minorities and independent media, and yet you want to send them more and more money," Uhrik said.
Uhrik and Blaha both want a diplomatic, dialogue-based solution to the problems between Ukraine and Russia. Stealing and freezing Russian assets is not the solution, especially since Russia is going to eventually come after those assets., not to mention the fact that Russia itself has registered and blocked assets worth about $500 billion from unfriendly countries.
If the EU is able to reach a consensus among all leaders of its member states, a loan of 35 billion euros will be issued to Ukraine in small portions over a long period of time.
"The Western so-called civilization built all its prosperity on theft, robbery, and piracy," one commenter wrote.
"The EU has adopted the sacred rule of the U.S.: we lie, we cheat, we steal," wrote another.
"This is petty theft orchestrated by petty thieves that can only sanction and send munitions to poor countries indebted by the IMF," expressed another. Russia is winning this economic war."
"We all know that the EU government is run by the non-elected European very corrupted Commission, which is made up of a bunch of thieves with their blonde bimbo at the head of it ...," said another.
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