US Treasury official visits Ukraine to discuss sanctions on Moscow and seizing Russian assets

WASHINGTON (AP) — A senior U.S. Treasury official has met with Ukrainian officials in Kyiv to discuss U.S. financial support, enforcing sanctions on Russia and using frozen Russian assets for Ukraine’s benefit in the war with Moscow.

The visit this week by Deputy Secretary Wally Adeyemo came as Russia gains territory after a lengthy delay in U.S. military aid left Ukraine at the mercy of Russia’s bigger army. Meantime, the outlook for Ukraine’s state finances is on shakier ground.

“Russia’s economy has become a wartime economy where every means of production and industry is now focused on building weapons to fight their war of choice and aggression here in Ukraine,” Adeyemo told reporters Wednesday in Ukraine’s capital. “And we need to do everything that we can to go after that.”

Adeyemo held talks with officials in Ukraine’s finance ministry and president’s office. At the Kyiv School of Economics, he spoke with faculty and civil society groups working on sanctions policy and ways to make the penalties against Russia more effective.

President Joe Biden signed legislation in April that allows Washington to seize the roughly $5 billion in Russian state assets located in the United States. But the majority of the $260 billion in frozen Russian assets are in Europe, and U.S. officials are hoping for a consensus from their European allies on how to spend that money.

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