Christine Lagarde, president of the European Central Bank, has poured cold water on US-backed proposals to use more than €260bn of frozen Russian assets to finance Ukraine’s war effort, warning they risked breaking international law.
Lagarde’s comments point to a transatlantic rift over the push to raise tens of billions of euros in debt for Ukraine secured against the future profits generated by the Russian state assets frozen by western countries.
Speaking at an event in Washington on Wednesday shortly before western finance ministers were due to discuss the latest proposals, Lagarde said they were raising serious concerns among lawyers — including in the US administration.