Market expert on sending Russian assets to Ukraine | Power Play with Vassy Kapelos

here to talk about how the talks could go is the activist who designed magnitsky sanctions and is himself wanted by Russian President Vladimir Putin Bill Browder hi Mr Browder great to have you back on the show thanks for making the time great to be here I remember interviewing you maybe even two years ago where you were a proponent an active proponent of the idea of free not only freezing Russian assets but transferring them to Ukraine two years later the subject is almost just being broached and really what What’s Up For Debate or discussion or what seems to be agreed to at least you could say is the prospect of the the profits uh from those assets being transferred from Ukraine does that go far enough from where you sit uh in my opinion definitely not um so just just to put these put some numbers out there there’s $300 billion dollar of Russian Central Bank Reserves that are frozen in the west and um uh Ukraine is desperately in need of resources to fight this war and we’re also in a situation where um a lot of Western governments are starting to bulk at continuing to fund Ukraine in the same way we’ve been doing it in the past we’ve seen this in the United States that delayed $61 billion for 6 months we saw this in the European Union where Hungary blocked 50 billion euros for a period of time and so the money is desperately needed um there’s less money coming from the west and and so to to take three billion EUR or or even um to take the future profits from this money and and put it all together and say we’re going to give them 50 billion euros right now is just not enough and this reminds me a lot of the talk when we said Ukraine needs tanks and everyone said well maybe maybe not yeah and then eventually everyone understood they really need tanks and so we gave them tanks and then the same thing with long range missiles and so on what do you think the impact is of that though the fact that every time Ukraine really needs something the imperative is there there has to be almost like an evolution of positions among the West to get to the point where finally now it seems like oh tanks is a no-brainer maybe at one point this will seem like a no-brainer but the negotiations have been you know fraud in some cases particularly where Europe is concerned well the consequences are a lot of dead ukrainians and and um and as the war goes on um it creates uh splinters among the Allies among among the consensus and what Putin is hoping is that that we all somehow you know just give up and and it’s very hard to hold a big Coalition like this together um to carry on with this war that Ukraine can’t afford by itself and Putin is hoping that um he’s got the staying power and we don’t and and he’s probably right in the sense that um you know America’s got an election coming up in November Donald Trump is is likely to be the uh next president of the United States based on poll results today and he said he’s gonna cut off Ukraine and that means that literally half the money going to Ukraine is not going to be coming in the future and so it really is sort of um uh hugely important that we stop sort of tiptoeing around this this uh the interest on this money and just go for the whole amount and we can we can uh you know send it into Ukraine at different times but the money should be taken away from Russia right now while the political will is there to do so the federal government here in this country and I know you’ve had many uh interactions with them in particular then foreign affairs minister Christian frand now Deputy Prime Minister Chris Freeland uh they have talked at length about how they are advocating for what what you’re describing that they have been working the sort of room the metaphoric room behind the scenes in order to see something happen um at the same time as we’ve been discussing what seems to be agreed to is far short of what what the you know key objective would be at least from you know Ukraine’s perspective and and the way Canada has talked about it behind the scenes too can Canada play um a role in in trying to convince our allies or are we sort of um limited by the size and the the relative weight of our country uh Canada is is um been a major part of the solution here not part of the problem Canada was the first country to be talking about this followed by the United States followed by Great Britain the the problem is that that the European Union is is sort of stuck there’s 27 member states of the European Union um and the policy that they come up with is not a a sort of single policy it’s a policy of of compromise and agreement and watering down and in particular um the European Union consists of certain members that are protin like uh Victor Orban of Hungary and and a few others and so um I think it really helps a lot to have someone like Christa Freeland there to to push this hard and push this forward it helps to do that with a uh a combined voice with um foreign Secretary of Britain David Cameron and and Janet Yellen from the United States in the end though um we’re we’re facing this this very dis functional European Union where most of the money sits more than 200 billion sits in the European Union and specifically it sits at Euro CLE in Belgium and um and so you really need to have a a a decision by the European Union to unlock all this money and the other thing I would say is that it can’t a decision can’t be taken by one country without being taken by all countries because there’s a risk if one country uh confiscates the money let’s say the United States does then people will say well the US dollar is a riskier currency than the Euro and so the Europe needs to do it together with the US and UK Etc and so it really comes down to the lowest common denominator and and everyone who can push should push and and I’m sure they will be pushing Mr Brader I’ll even on that note appreciate your analysis this evening thank you so much thank you

Hermitage Capital Management co-founder Bill Browder on whether sending the profits of frozen Russian assets to Ukraine goes far enough.

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