Page 28 - bneIntelliNews monthly country report Russia May 2024

German ex-army officer admits spying for Russia, blames fear of nuclear war. Identified only as Thomas H., the 54-year-old went on trial in Dusseldorf on April 29 charged with conducting espionage on behalf of Moscow and leaking state secrets.
Former UK Armed Forces minister: 'Ukraine defeat will cost trillions to West in new Cold War.' James Heappey said that Kyiv will need more aid packages to win the battle for "security across the whole European-Atlantic region."
Czech police conclude Russian agents behind deadly 2014 ammunition depot blasts. Russian military intelligence operatives were responsible for deadly ammunition depot explosions in Czechia in 2014, the Czech police said on April 29 following a three-year investigation.
● Sanctions
As part of the new $61bn US package, at the same time, the president signed the so-called REPO (Rebuilding Economic Prosperity and Opportunity for Ukrainians) Act package, which e.g. allows the president to seise frozen Russian government funds in the United States and use those funds to support Ukraine. In the EU, the discussion has mainly been about using the proceeds of the frozen funds to support Ukraine in some form. In the G7 countries, it is estimated that the assets of the Russian central bank are frozen, worth a total of about 300 billion dollars. Most of the assets are in Europe, in the United States the assets of the Russian central bank are estimated to be around 4–6 billion dollars.
Russia threatens to decrease diplomatic relations with US in response to REPO Act. Russia could lower its level of diplomatic relations with the U.S. if confiscated frozen Russian assets are transferred to Ukraine, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told Russian state-controlled media on April 25.
The European Parliament has gained more support for confiscating Russian assets, but the G7 is inclined to use only their generated revenue. The European Parliament held a debate regarding the use of frozen assets belonging to the Russian Central Bank, where most deputies support the European Commission’s proposal to transfer the profits from these assets to Ukraine. However, many parliamentarians insist that this is not enough. They gave various arguments in favor of confiscating all seised Russian assets, totaling nearly €300B globally, of which about €220B is being held in the EU. Member of the European Parliament Andrius Kubilius emphasised that confiscation would be completely legal because states can use countermeasures to force the aggressor to fulfill its legal obligations. The US resorted to such actions with Iran’s state funds in 1981 and Iraq’s in 1992 as compensation for Kuwait's losses. Washington will use this again utilise this mechanism to confiscate $20B of Russian assets that are in the US. However, the US proposal to tap frozen Russian assets revenues to help Ukraine
28 RUSSIA Country Report May 2024 www.intellinews.com