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Switzerland refused to transfer income from Russia’s frozen assets to Ukraine.
Switzerland will not follow the example of the European Union and will not transfer income from Russia’s frozen assets to Ukraine, the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (Seco, a division of the Swiss Ministry of Economy) told Keystone-SDA.
The department stressed that, according to the country’s legislation and international obligations, Switzerland cannot receive “any extraordinary income in connection with the funds of the Russian Central Bank.”
As of April 2024, the total value of the Central Bank of Russia’s assets frozen in Switzerland amounted to just over 7 billion Swiss francs ($7.9 billion). At the same time, as noted in Seco, these funds do not generate “any special income.”
In total, about $280 billion worth of Russian assets have been frozen in the G7 countries and the EU, as well as in Australia since the start of the war in Ukraine, most of which are at the disposal of the Belgian Euroclear group. In 2023, they generated €4.4 billion in net profit, and in the first quarter of this year, they generated another €1.6 billion. According to the Financial Times, by 2027, total profits could reach 20 billion euros.
Earlier, the EU countries agreed to transfer income from Russian assets to Kyiv. The European Commission noted that these revenues “are not sovereign assets,” so the mechanism for their transfer to Ukraine does not violate property rights.