Kira Rudik, Member Of Ukraine Verkhovna Rada Gets It Right: Taxpayers Should Not Borrow Money To Support Ukraine. Unresolved: Who Gets First Their Portion Of Russia Central Bank’s US$340 Billion?
“Taxpayers of the countries that support us should not be paying for Putin’s crimes, should not be…Putin should be paying for his own deeds.” Kira Rudik, Member (Holos)- Verkhovna Rada
Rudik, Since 24 February 2022 A Ubiquitous (And Strident) Presence On The Conference And Interview Global Circuit, Gets It Right, A Bit Late: Neither United States Taxpayers Nor Taxpayers In Any Country Should Be Borrowing Money To Support Ukraine.
Rudik Did Not Say Taxpayer Borrowing Should Cease Until Funds Of The Central Bank Of The Russian Federation Are Obtained.
Will Rudik Support Reimbursing What Taxpayers Have Already Borrowed Since 24 February 2022- Nearing US$200 Billion, Before US$340 Billion In Frozen Funds Of The Central Bank Of The Russian Federation Are Delivered To Ukraine?
The United States Has US$38 Billion In Funds Of The Central Bank Of The Russian Federation. The United Kingdom Has US$31 Billion.
“Central Bank Funds Are Protected By Sovereign Immunity, A Legal Concept Which Provides Sovereign States Immunity From Civil And Criminal Lawsuits.”
Draft of a proposed United Kingdom statute “On the seizure of Russian state assets and support for Ukraine” introduced by a Sir Chris Bryant, a Labor Party member of parliament. The government objects to the proposal. LINK
Daleep Singh, Deputy National Security Advisor For International Economics at The White House (2021-2022), suggested the government of the United States should “use the [Central Bank of the Russian Federation] reserves [US$38 billion] that we have immobilized at the New York Federal Reserve Bank, transfer them to [the government of] Ukraine and allow them to put them up as collateral to raise money.”
Using a 2% annual rate (which might be higher) the global interest earned since 24 February 2022 on the US$340 billion in Central Bank of the Russian Federation frozen funds is approximately US$7,135,342,478.00. Reviewing another way, the frozen assets are earning US$558,904,131.60 per month- US$18,630,137.72 per day. If governments do not want to impact the principal, what about providing the interest to the government of Ukraine?
Should Ukraine Reconstruction, Reparations Be Taken First And Countries Supporting Ukraine Wait For Their Reimbursement? Or, First In, First Out?
Sergii Marchenko, Minister of Finance Of Ukraine, reported the anticipated 2023 budget deficit for the government of Ukraine is US$38 billion. The United States government (taxpayer borrowing) is providing US$9.9 billion and the twenty-seven country European Union (EU) is providing US$18. Billion through its new program, Macro-Financial Assistance. There remains a shortfall of US$10 billion.
LINK to Kiel Institute For The World Economy Ukraine Funding Support Tracker: https://www.ifw-kiel.de/topics/war-against-ukraine/ukraine-support-tracker/
During the last months, officials of the government of Ukraine have taken notice of the increasing criticism targeted toward their continued insistence that the taxpayers in those countries whose governments are supportive of the government of Ukraine should borrow funds to provide to the government of Ukraine.
In 2021, Ukraine ranked as the second-lowest country on the European Continent on Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index, behind only the Russian Federation, shared Vitaly Vavrishchuk, head of research at Kyiv, Ukraine-based Investment Capital Ukraine (ICU). “Participation in the post-war reconstruction could be attractive for investors. But, still we will have to address all those issues (transparency and corruption) that we have not had time to before the war began.”
Volodymyr Zelensky, President of Ukraine, has made no secret of his belief that the collective “West” has an obligation to right previous wrongs, defend Ukraine, protect Ukraine, and rebuild Ukraine.
Who is he referencing? The thirty country members of the Brussels, Belgium-based North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the twenty-seven country members of the Brussels, Belgium-based European Union (EU) among other countries.
NATO members: United States, United Kingdom, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Albania, Lithuania, Bulgaria, Montenegro, Croatia, Czech Republic, Poland, Estonia, Romania, Germany, Slovakia, Greece, Slovenia, Hungary, Spain, Turkiye, Latvia, and North Macedonia.
EU members: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Republic of Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain and Sweden.
His particular ire remains focused towards successive governments in the United States: Bush-Cheney Administration (2001-2009), Obama-Biden Administration (2009-2017), Trump-Pence Administration (2017-2021), and Biden-Harris Administration (2021- ).
Successive governments of Ukraine believe there is a collective responsibility of the “West” for not doing more in 2008, 2014, and in 2022. From the perspective in Kyiv, all invoices are to be directed to the “West.”
The government of Ukraine and at least one of its “oligarchs” has held firmly that at the historical core those governments whose decisions did not dissuade prior or hold to account after the 2008 invasion by the armed forces of the Russian Federation of Georgia (Abkhazia Oblast and Ossetia Oblast); did not dissuade prior or hold to account after the 2014 invasion by the armed forces of the Russian Federation of the Crimean Peninsula and Donbas Region (Donetsk Oblast and Luhansk Oblast) in Ukraine; and did not dissuade prior or hold to account after the 2022 further invasion by the armed forces of the Russian Federation into additional areas of the Donbas Region and into other areas of Ukraine, the receipts for the cumulative damages inflicted upon Ukraine are the responsibility of members of the EU, NATO, and primarily the United States- meaning their respective taxpayers.
As President Zelensky shared in July 2022, the reconstruction is the “common task of the whole democratic world. Reconstruction of Ukraine is the biggest contribution to the support of global peace.”
The Fox News Interview
“Kira Rudik, a member of the Ukrainian Parliament, shared during an interview with Fox News that interview that she and others have been pushing for a plan to use money from Russian oligarchs and central banks to support Ukraine’s defenses. She said this amount would total more than $500 billion. Rudik noted that Congress already approved legislation at the end of last year to use this money for Ukrainian defense, reconstruction and reparation.”
NOTE: Kira Rudik is incorrect in describing the law which focuses upon the assets of individuals of Russian descent, “oligarchs,” rather than assets of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation. From the sponsors of the law: “This new law will enable proceeds from recovered Russian oligarch assets to be sent directly to Ukraine for defense, reconstruction, and reparation. It’s a matter of basic justice that Russian criminals linked to Putin should pay for this brutal, illegal, and unprovoked war against Ukraine.”
““So we are waiting for it to be sent, but we need to go further and actually execute on this legislation, because I believe it will be the fair and logical thing to do,” she said. Rudik said doing this will send the right message to other authoritarian rulers that they were face significant financial punishment if they take similar actions to Putin. Some Republicans have voiced opposition to providing further financial support to Ukraine, saying that U.S. money should be used for domestic concerns. But Rudik said taking the money from the Russian sources will help the public avoid having to pay the costs of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. “Taxpayers of the countries that support us should not be paying for Putin’s crimes, should not be,” she said. “Putin should be paying for his own deeds.””
Ms. Kira Rudik (37), has served since 2019 as a member of the Verkhovna Rada (Parliament) of Ukraine representing the Holos Party (“Voice” or “Vote”). Since 24 February 2022, Ms. Rudik has become a ubiquitous presence at conferences and in the media, particularly on television, and has traveled extensively seeking opportunities to meet with politicans. According to Wikipedia: “Holos is a liberal and pro-European political party in Ukraine, which was led by Ukrainian musician Svyatoslav Vakarchuk until March 2020. The party won 20 MPs in the 2019 parliamentary election and became part of the opposition in the current Ukrainian parliament. The party split late July 2021 and seven MPs were expelled from the party. As of September 2021, only nine of the party’s 20 seats in the Verkhovna Rada are held by MPs who are loyal to the party; the remaining 11 are held by MPs who have formed a breakaway group called Justice (Spravedlyvist)…. On 2 February 2022, party leader Kira Rudyk stated that a criminal case had been opened against the party regarding its economic activities. In comments on the party's official site Rudyk stated that the case was politically motivated, and that Ukraine's State Bureau of Investigation was “systematically attempting to muzzle those who criticise the government while ignoring cases involving ‘Ze-friends’”… Under the leadership of Kira Rudyk, the Holos political party became the first of the parliamentary parties of Ukraine to receive full membership in the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE). On June 4, 2022, she was elected vice-president of the ALDE, for the first time in history from among countries that are not members of the EU.
EU Members Not All In Unison
COUNTRIES HALT TRANSPARENCY PROPOSAL ON RUSSIAN ASSETS: Meanwhile, over a dozen EU countries on Wednesday led a pushback against a Commission proposal for penalties to enforce reporting obligations on Russian assets. The plan was to fine institutions and individuals if they failed to report on the whereabouts of Russian state assets, but the pushback from EU capitals forced the Commission to drop it, as POLITICO reported.
Not this time: The proposal was part of the EU’s 10th sanctions package against the Kremlin, but countries including Austria, Germany, Belgium, the Czech Republic, France, Italy, Latvia, Malta and Portugal argued they needed more time to assess the technical details.
Borrell says EU will keep pushing to enforce sanctions: Asked about the pushback, Borrell told Playbook that this was not the end of the road. “We will have to do something to prevent circumvention,” he said. “Because it is not enough to proclaim sanctions, we have to implement them — and that requires imposing a lot of discipline on a lot of people” to avoid funds being moved to a different account or exporters taking different routes.
SANCTIONS EXTENDED: EU ambassadors on Wednesday decided on a sixth-month extension of sanctions against individuals linked to Russia’s war, after Hungary gave up demands to remove four names, in exchange for keeping the renewal period at six months rather than the proposed 12. Extending the renewal period would have given Budapest fewer opportunities to torpedo the sanctions and derail EU decisions.