US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said that there are legal grounds for seizing income from frozen Russian assets in favor of Ukraine, and it is not a "theft."
"There is no sense at all in which it's theft … So there's no legal issue here. And our allies, our partners, the G7, will provide Ukraine with a $50 billion loan, which will be repaid over time from these proceeds," Yellen said in an interview with the ABC News broadcaster on Sunday.
Yellen is also convinced that there is a "battle of wills" between the West and Russia regarding these funds. According to her, Russia believes that the Western coalition "will crumble in the sense that we won't go on providing Ukraine with the resources that they need to fight this war."
"And this is a way of showing that we have the capacity and the will to do so," the Treasury Secretary concluded.
Moscow has maintained that any attempts to confiscate Russian assets amount to theft and a violation of international law.