Maria Nizzero - Why it May be Impossible to use Frozen Russian Assets to pay for Rebuilding Ukraine.

“As the UK government mulls the idea of using frozen Russian assets to
help pay for the rebuilding of war-torn Ukraine, ministers appear to
have failed to realise that a simple weapon against sanctioned assets is
within their reach. That is introducing a provision forcing sanctioned
oligarchs to disclose all their assets in the UK.” Today I will be
discussing this idea that could make a huge difference to Ukraine with
the author of these words, Maria Nizzero. We’ll be discussing whether it
is moral or feasible to funnel the assets of rich Russians to pay for
the crimes of a regime that they enabled.

Maria Nizzero is a Research Fellow at the Centre for Financial Crime and
Security Studies (CFCS) of the Royal United Services Institute. Her
research focuses on UK economic crime, the foreign policy dimension of
illicit finance, asset recovery, kleptocracy and corporate transparency.
Her work is important to the war in Ukraine, as she is currently
looking at ways to recover frozen sanctioned assets. Maria has extensive
knowledge of and deep personal interest in the topics of European Union
politics, illicit finance and security studies, organised crime, and
terrorism. She is a former Associate Professor of EU Politics and
currently PhD candidate in the Law Programme at UPF, International
Public Law and International Relations Department.