Seizing Russia’s Central Bank Funds Is Illegal and Unwise
Breaking international law is the wrong way to help Ukraine. Overcoming US domestic gridlock is the right way.
Dollars without face value.
Photographer: Vladimir Sindeyev/AFP via Getty Images
Here’s a bill winding its way through the US Congress that looks great at first blush: the REPO for Ukrainians Act. Or, in full, the Rebuilding Economic Prosperity and Opportunity for Ukrainians Act. I even like the pun on “repossession.”
REPO is bicameral and bipartisan legislation sponsored by the Republican leaders on foreign-policy matters: Jim Risch, the ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Michael McCaul, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Its gist is as bold as it is simple. The law, if it becomes one, would authorize the US president to confiscate billions of dollars owned by the Russian central bank but held in the US, and to give that money to the Ukrainians instead.