Ukraine central bank governor calls for more sanctions, seeks access to sanctioned Russian assets to rebuild country

• Ukraine asked for access to frozen Russian assets to rebuild the country

• Russia’s forex reserves of $630 billion are frozen by US and EU sanctions

Ukraine Central Bank’s governor Kyrylo Shevchenko called for an extensive list of additional sanctions on Russia.

Shevchenko asked for seven more sanctions on Russian financial institutions, from cutting card payments to suspending Moscow’s access to the IMF.

In an email interview to BBC, he said that the world is already seeing the effect of sanctions on Russia’s financial system but also emphasized that there are more to be done.

Every day that sanctions are delayed “is costing the lives of civilians and children”, Shevchenko told BBC.

Using Russia’s frozen assets to rebuild Ukraine

The governor of the National Bank of Ukraine said, “the need for money will be huge,” to rebuild the country and mentioned that Russian assets should be used to repair the damage caused during the invasion.

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“A large share of financing is needed to be obtained as a reparation from the aggressor, including funds that are currently frozen in our allied countries.”

Russia’s foreign exchange reserves of $630 billion are currently frozen by the US and EU sanctions and are estimated to be held outside Russia.

Additional sanctions

Although Shevchenko welcomed the financial sanctions already imposed by the international community, he called on governments, institutions and companies to set a wide-ranging list of economic sanctions, targeting every corner of Russia’s economy.

He called on the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to suspend Russia and its ally Belarus from its meetings and block their access to assets issued by the IMF called Special Drawing Rights, “as these funds may be used to finance military action against our country.”

Shevchenko said the central banks’ organization and the Bank for International Settlements should expel Russia’s central bank, along with US and European Union should instruct their banks to cut ties with Russian banks.

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The governor also asked for four more restrictions:

•  Refinitiv and Bloomberg’s trading and financial data platforms should terminate access for Russian and Belarusian clients.

• China’s UnionPay card payment system should stop servicing payment cards issued by Russian banks.

• Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkey and Vietnam to block the Russian payment system, Mir.