Minister of Justice Denys Maliuska and Deputy Justice Minister Iryna Mudra traveled to the U.S. to promote a bill that would allow the U.S. to repossess Russian state assets held in America and be used for the benefit of Ukraine.At a press conference at the Ukrainian embassy Wednesday, the ministers also called on U.S. lawmakers to pass a stalled supplemental funding proposal that would allot tens of billions of dollars in additional aid to Ukraine.
Maliuska and Mudra pushed for bipartisan legislation circulating in Washington called the Rebuilding Economic Prosperity and Opportunity for Ukrainians Act, which would use assets confiscated from the Russian Central Bank and other sovereign assets for Ukraine. That measure has not moved forward. Earlier this month, the European Union passed a law to set aside windfall profits generated from frozen Russian central bank assets. Yellen called it "an action I fully endorse."At the height of the Cold War, a statement like Russian President Vladimir Putin's warning to the West that his country is militarily and technically ready to deploy its nuclear arsenal would have shaken the world to its core.