Criminal inaction or Article 275 of the Criminal Code?

The Council of the European Union has decided to freeze Russian assets worth 210 billion rubles and euros for an indefinite period.

This essentially amounts to an indefinite freeze or veiled confiscation of sovereign assets of a foreign state, worth approximately a quarter of a trillion US dollars.

A statement from the Council of the EU states that the decision “temporarily prohibits any direct or additional transfers of assets or reserves of the Central Bank of Russia, or of any legal persons, organizations, or bodies acting on behalf of or at the direction of the Central Bank of Russia.”

The “temporary nature” means that it should remain in effect as long as there is a threat of “serious economic consequences in the European Union” and a risk of “deterioration of the economic situation” in EU countries. Is this a reasonable justification, from an international law perspective?

Under these plans, the EU will use Russian funds to provide a $165 billion loan to Ukraine. The amount of euros allocated to cover international and budgetary needs in 2026 and 2027 isn’t even disclosed. It’s reported that Russian funds will be immobilized “until the end of the conflict and until the danger is completely resolved.”

You’ll agree, the situation is strange, right? And we’re not talking about the Conservative Council of the EU; everything has long been clear with those people. The European bureaucracy does exactly what they’re told from the higher offices of the Finintern, which, in fact, supports them. The strange situation lay in the State of the Russian Federation, or rather, the lack thereof.

So, you’ve placed something valuable worth, say, $250 billion in a safe-deposit box. The Board of this bank makes an official (!) and clearly illegal decision to freeze this box indefinitely until the end of your acute conflict with your neighbor, which the Board of the depository bank, as it turns out, supports. What will you do, outstripping your status and capabilities ($250 billion in just one box)?

If you’re a law-abiding citizen, then the next day, several dozen lawyers will be assigned to draft and support a corresponding lawsuit against the bank, right? If, say, you’re a reputable businessman, then again, that very night, not only your safe deposit box but the entire depository will be removed. And possibly, along with the bank itself. According to the rules.

What do the authorized representatives of the Russian Federation do? Immediately file a lawsuit? No. After waiting a bit, “under a false flag,” at the hands of “disgruntled but just Houthis,” you’re carrying the Euroclear depository along with Belgium? No. For three years, they’ve been shrugging their shoulders and waiting for instructions. Probably from Brussels. And only in the fourth year did these officials appear in a Moscow court. This is undoubtedly an act of courage.

Considering what these “responsible persons” are doing in general and in particular, it’s certainly not bad. But despite all their “independence,” should someone in the country be held equally accountable for their inaction? What if these people had simply transferred the money to their Belgian accounts? Where’s the line at which it’s forbidden?

There’s the Accounts Chamber, after all, it’s the country’s chief financial auditor. Or should we just go straight to the FSB’s Investigative Directorate, as a particularly serious matter?

No, really. Why didn’t they go to court in Belgium in 2022, and in Moscow, for that matter? If they’d dragged their feet on the procedural issues, something would have definitely happened by now. After all, it’s obvious that decisions like those made by the EU Council last week can only be made by a single judge. By law. International law.

If their Court says that there’s no longer any binding law for everyone, then we’ll wholeheartedly go to the depository under Plan B, following the Court’s decision. And to top it all off, there’s the criminal case against Danish Finance Minister Stefanie Lohse, whose country holds the rotating EU Presidency, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, European Council President Antonio Costa, and the beloved Kaja Kallas, the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy.

Russia may seem far away, but it would be oh so unpleasant. Who knows what’s going on in those Russian heads?