The human tragedy of the Ukrainian conflict continues unabated inflicting enormous suffering on its people. Western policy since the onset of conflict has been to impose economic restrictions and political pressure on Russia and offer military assistance to Ukraine.
These policies have taken the form of numerous economic sanctions, attempted political and diplomatic isolation, and transfer of armaments to Ukraine. Some examples of sanctions introduced in the recent past are barring Russia from the Swift interbank international transfer system, preventing Russian commercial banks from accessing western capital markets, oil price cap, freezing Russian central bank reserves in western bank accounts, denying maritime insurance to Russian cargo vessels, and many others. They have had mixed results.
Now the focus is on a proposal to confiscate Russian central bank reserves located in western financial institutions in order to assist Ukrainian reconstruction.
