Senators on Thursday welcomed the news that leaders of the Group of Seven wealthy democracies have agreed to back using the interest earned from frozen Russian state assets as collateral for a large new loan to Ukraine.
Specifics of the leaders’ agreement reached at the G7 summit in Italy are still coming out, but reports say it involves using the windfall profits from roughly $280 billion in Russian sovereign assets held in Western financial institutions to back a $50 billion loan to the Ukrainian government.
“I think that there’s a certain amount of symmetry in using Russian assets to try and recover from the Russian damage that’s been [done],” said Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., who co-chairs the U.S. Senate NATO Observer Group. “Hopefully, we can mobilize it and get broad support outside of the G7.”
