Keir Starmer urged to push for Ukraine to get $300bn of frozen Russian assets
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Financier turned activist Bill Browder tells WEF in Davos Russia will make gains if US military support dries up. Keir Starmer should show leadership over the Ukraine war by pushing for $300bn (£243bn) of frozen Russian assets to be used to fund Kyiv’s military, the financier turned activist Bill Browder has said.
Speaking on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Browder warned that if US military support for Ukraine dried up, Russia would make territorial gains in the near-three-year long conflict, forcing millions of Ukrainians to flee the country.
Browder predicts “a refugee problem like we’ve never seen before”, estimating that 15 million people could leave Ukraine if US military aid ended without a substitute. Earlier this week, Donald Trump ordered a 90-day pause in foreign development assistance programmes, but Ukrainian officials are hopeful that blockade will not apply to their military aid.
Browder said delays to a package of US military support in early 2024 allowed Russia to make advances into Ukraine, and fears a repeat now Trump is back in the White House, if the president decides to force negotiations by suspending aid. Browder’s solution is to take the $300bn of foreign currency, gold and government bonds belonging to the Russian central bank which were frozen after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, and spend it on weapons.
