The Trump administration has proposed unfreezing some Russian government assets frozen after Moscow’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine in an effort to revive stalled peace negotiations, but European officials rejected the proposal, the Financial Times reported Wednesday. The plan, pitched by U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, would involve transferring some of the assets into a special-purpose financial vehicle overseen by Washington, according to the FT, which cited four people briefed on the matter.
The proposal emerged during discussions in Miami last week involving U.S. negotiators and officials from Ukraine, France, Germany, Britain, the European Union, and NATO. A U.S. official told the newspaper that the use of Russia’s frozen assets had been discussed as part of a comprehensive peace agreement, but the mechanisms for releasing the funds and determining how they would be spent remained under discussion. European delegates opposed surrendering control over the assets or returning any of the money to Moscow, the FT reported, citing people familiar with the discussions. One person briefed on the talks told the newspaper that European officials made clear the proposal would not be accepted.
