EU to use windfall profits from Russian assets for Ukraine. Will allies follow? – National [Video]

European Union countries formally adopted a plan on Tuesday to use windfall profits from Russian central bank assets frozen in the EU for Ukraine’s defense.

It is the first in what could be a series of moves by the G7 group of large Western nations to utilize the near $300 billion worth of Moscow’s assets that have been immobilized, but it remains a highly complex and controversial precedent.

Here is what has been done and some of the other ideas being looked at:

Tuesday’s EU move exploits the fact that the lion’s share of the Russian reserves – essentially bonds and other types of securities in which the Russian central bank had invested – are held in a Brussels-based depository called Euroclear.

Under the agreement, 90% of the proceeds that the bonds generate will go into an EU-run fund for military aid for Ukraine, with the other 10% going to support Kyiv …