Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal announced on Dec. 24 that Ukraine had received the first $1 billion installment of a $20 billion loan. This was two weeks after the U.S. Treasury Department deposited $20 billion into a World Bank fund; the source for the loan was the interest on the estimated $300 billion frozen assets belonging to the Russian central bank, reported RT.
Shmyhal gloated in English on his X account: “Ukraine has received 1 billion dollars from the United States, backed by profits from frozen russian assets. This is the first tranche of the planned 20 billion dollars that the U.S. intends to provide as part of the G7 initiative. We are grateful to U.S. partners and the World Bank for this important step towards justice. We expect all russian sovereign assets to be confiscated and used for the reconstruction of Ukraine.”
The Kremlin has called this transfer of funds “theft,” and has vowed to respond with legal actions.
Responding to the news on today, Peskov was quoted by RT as stating that “speaking in plain Russian, this money was stolen from us,” and added that Moscow’s assets were blocked “absolutely illegally,” against all norms and rules.
