[000:00:00;00] news vacation as an applicant, do they have good weather? i, when i told me that they don't have violence do this, and we go sailing tulsa tissue today, because when they go to that video mill, you want me to walk with car bama. otherwise. so not because the the,

the ukraine says it cannot wait for the war to stop, to stop rebuilding its country and its not waiting. but funds are drawing up. that's why it's trying to drum up support, not only the full weapons deliveries here at the world economic forum in davos, switzerland, but also reconstruction 8. the american born british financier, and political active as bill router was once behind the largest foreign investment portfolio in russia. i asked him to what extent frozen russian central bank assets could be used to rebuild you, right? we're in a kind of a crucial moment right now where your crane is running out of ammunition. ukraine is running out of resources. the west, who had been promised to stay as long as it took are now hesitating. we've seen gary ends block. uh you funds $50000000000.00 view funds. we've seen some small group of far. right. republicans block us funds. and so this is really, really more a question of how does ukraine,

when the war and what funds do they need during the war? and so i would say that that the frozen russian assets should be used for defense 1st. and what's the worse over then? we can talk about reconstruction, what sort of sums are we talking about here? first of all, hundreds of billions. well, nobody knows for sure there's a lack of transparency um, many countries aren't fully disclosing. but we're looking at somewhere between $3350000000000.00 of russian central bank reserves in the west, in the united states, in the u. k. and the u and various other places. and it raises a lot of questions. first of all, because each country has their own decisions to make about confiscating this money . but it's, it's clear from both a, a financial and moral standpoint that russia should pay for the damage they've done . how can it be confiscated to as well? the money has been frozen, which is the 1st thing and, and if you had asked me, let's say 3 years ago before the oldest happened,

and with the you freeze the russian central bank reserves. i would have told you there's no way that there's like, there's no way that there's a political will to do that. and they froze that money. now, now the money needs to be confiscated. there are many people saying, well what, what is that going to do is increase on certainty. and what about the sovereign immunity of russian money, etc? and my argument is that, that russia has so broken the international rule book by invading ukraine. that one can make clear legal argument to confiscate this money. and most importantly, the money, you know, see, they're going to come out of our pocket. or it's gonna come out of the russians pocket and put in should pay before we pay for his war. what could happen worst case scenario when it comes to financial stability? and so i thing of so much money all the months. well, the, the fear monitors say that if i'm, if this happens, if this money is confiscated, then everyone will abandon the euro and the dollar,

and the sterling and the swiss franc y. because they'll think that these are not safe currencies. but then where are they going to put their money, or they're going to put their money in, in the china, in china, or in saudi arabia. i mean it's, it's kind of an absurd arguments and efforts are narrow minded argument to say that people aren't going to own the us dollar or the euro. because of this, you, i'm sure if you're about to invade a neighbor and cause hundreds of billions of dollars of damage, you might not be keeping your money in euro isn't dollars. but i think that for the most part, it doesn't have any effect on financial stability. and what's interesting is that the people who are for saying this are politicians, not finance here as i been in the financial markets for my whole life. and i can tell you that that to the dollar and the euro will continue to be reserved currencies after this is done. some people are saying this would set a dangerous precedent. it is uncharted to our trade, but wouldn't it be setting a very, or sending

a very strong signal to russia to others about starting was indeed this is, this was the, the main unexpected consequence of doing this is that it will act as a, a massive deterrent on china, i'm going into taiwan. if you have a um, a country with a lot of foreign exchange reserves and a, a mission to do something terrible. they may say, well, you know, these foreign exchange reserves that we have are probably more valuable to us than whatever that uh, aggressive plan we have to invade a foreign country. and so i would say that that's um yes, a sense of precedent, which is better if you invade your neighbors, you're not gonna get to keep your money. in the meantime, the debate is hot between the various countries in europe and union, germany, italy, belgium, france, worried about just channeling the profits made from these pros and assets that they are holding at the moment, which in some cases amount to some 3000000000 euros. i believe was a, this is a really interesting thing. so the,

the european union has gotten their head around the idea of taking some of russia's money, confiscating some of these reserves. and so the moment you confiscate one percent, or 3 percent, or whatever percent it is and you want to confiscate. and you've already crossed the rubicon. why confiscate 2 percent when you can confiscate a 100 percent? ukraine needs the money rush. it has done the damage and you've already crossed the line. it just seems like kind of a baby step this on necessary when, when it is clear to me that in some period of time the political will would be there to confiscate all the money. what about the legalities of all of this? can you bring us up to speed on what's right? what's wrong here? well, so the, the russian government will be screaming bloody murder and they're saying this is a violation of law. this is money that belongs to the sovereign state of russia. this money is protected by sovereign immunity, which is like your embassy, you can't be touched on. the uh, western lawyers are going to make the argument that's um,

there is something called the lawn calendar measure. so if you invade a foreign country and you create a $300400000000000.00, a trillion dollars worth of damages that you owe those damages to the country evaded. and there's many situations in, in, in the world where there are conflicts of laws. this is one where it's pretty clear that the, the conflict of lot of the sovereign immunity is trumps by the law and counter measures. and that's, but with the argument that the lawyers will make. what about the threat is coming from russia? then the threats of tit for tat reprisals when it comes to seizing of assets is russia in, in, in a position to seize assets of any type? well, it's not as if the u. s. federal reserve is keeping their roubles. yeah. and in the russian central bank, so i don't think that that's gonna happen. but we're here in davos and i was just um, having a dinner on monday night and, and one of the attendees was

a senior executive from the hon di company in korea. and they had a $3000000000.00 investment in, in and car manufacturing in st. petersburg. and they were forced to sell it for a $114.00 back to the russian some, some russian. and so the expropriation on the private sector side has already happened, is that, as i like um, western corporate assets are now at risk. they, they, they, they, they, they, they either been liquidated voluntarily by, by these western companies, or they're being expropriated by the russian government. now, even before this happens. and so i would say that that's a, a sort of red herring that, that, that shouldn't be standing out there. what else could russia do? they can huff and they can pause and they can scream bloody murder as they will. and that will be that and, and for what it's worth, you know, this is also not just to help you crane, but this is a way of punishing pu um we need to punish him for what he's done. he needs to pay up a deer price. he,

his people need to see that this is what happens when you do something so full hardy as invade and murder, your neighboring country, your kremlin critic but your also were a huge investor in russia. how would you feel, seeing all of those assets, all that money suddenly being shifted out of russia to you? great. i think it's i would read a huge sigh of relief. i think it would be the morally right thing to do. the ukraine is desperate to stand up on their own 2 feet. and before we start sending our money from the west port and should pay for the for the war, he caused and he should and ukrainian should get put his money to fight back. and that seems like, you know, the only good, honest thing to do in the end is interesting. when i talk about this publicly, when i talk about it on twitter and the responses unanimous, that this is the right thing to do. and people in the west can't understand why it hasn't been done yet. is how much money does you quite need when it comes to reconstruction?

i've been reading around 400000000000 euros enough with either the numbers i've read or, well, well north, the 400000000000 i've, i've seen numbers as high as a trillion and it all depends on how you measure the damage and, and what kind of reconstruction needs to be done, but we're talking about infrastructure, we're talking about electricity, grids, housing, hospitals, etc. i mean, you can look at the pictures of, of moria, paul and boucher and they've been leveled to the ground. and, and by the way, this doesn't even take into account the, you know, the, the, the, the loss of life, the, the, the complete destruction of humanity that's happened there. there's just untold damage that needs to be compensated. and, and there's, i mean, you know, that the, the damn, that was, was blown up by the russians. i mean, it's just goes on and on and on. and so as almost unimaginable what, what the russians have done in ukraine, because that's what they do. they do a scorched earth, total destruction strategy, and it's not just and ukraine. they did that in chechnya,

they did that in various places. georgia that this, this suited syria. this is what the russians do, that they don't really know how to build. they know how to destroy, and in this case, not just a damn, also a nuclear power plant and, and on and on and on. and it's, you know, and we're not anywhere near done with this war. the, you know, food and has made it clear he's carrying on. and so whatever the measurement of damages is, that's just an interim measure and the damages are going to get worse there. every day there's missile attacks from russia and to ukraine. so do you see problems in investing and reconstruction at the same time as a war continues? it seems to me that this war needs to be one. ukraine needs the money to win the war, and that's gotta be the, the 1st and only priority. and then we talked about reconstruction. would you put your money in your credit right now? i'd wait until the war is over. so that's not what you quite needs. it says it needs that money now to start rebuilding now i was just mentioning the electricity grids, the housing problem. i mean,

how does life go one uh close to the close to the front lines of a wall? well, most importantly, the painting and citizens who are there need heating, they need electricity, they need hot water. they need, you know, the function on a day to day basis. but i think it's right now the duct tape and, you know, whatever, you know, told that temporary measures keep everything going. well. we try to get this war one and it wouldn't be that 8 more, more than anything is weapons. you know, serious weapons to expel russia from their territory. but why you'll caution or hesitancy, is it because you'd like to see public funds, not private funds, 1st of all put in or, or does it require joint, as well as at this stage of the game and in private investors? you know, we're looking at risk and looking at return and how do you measure the risk of a bomb comes in and destroys everything you might have built in. so, at this stage of the game, this is, this is all about. and so in my mind about defense, the reality is people here in davos invest as private investors here in douglas,

i thought was going to be located, looking at the return on investment, the risks involved. uh, but is that where states need to step up? yeah. when, when, when the private sector doesn't work, that's when the public sector needs to step in. and this is a situation where for the survival of ukraine, they need public funds and in the west has been in the europe in united states and u. k. have been some providing funds and they need to continue to provide funds, but it shouldn't just be the tax payers of our countries that provide those funds. the argument then, as far as the us goes to u. k is stepping up funding to try to fill that gap the you is trying as well. um, how would you convince american politicians here to continue that support? well, i think that both american policy, since that i know, and i know a lot of them are fully on the side of ukraine and it's, it's not, it's not a um, i don't think it's a long term issue. right. the 2nd, i think that congress will find a way to, to provide us congress will provide a way to,

to provide that the 63 some odd 1000000000 that has been promised this year. and the big, the elephant in the room is what happens when there's a new president in november of this year, they'll be a u. s. presidential election. president trump, our se former president trump. is the front runner right now. he said that he will in the war one day, what he means by that easy is evil stuff, funding ukraine. and if that happens, then does europe have the resources to step up? and by the way, comes back to the present restroom reserves. i might even describe them as donald trump insurance. explain why, what, how, how that would work? well basically if, if i'm donald trump is going to cut off ukraine from funding. and ukraine needs the funds. and there's one big pile of money right there, which is these russian central bank reserves of $300.00,

something plus $1000000000.00 that can be drawn on to fuel the gap that donald trump will leave. feel proud, a pleasure talking to you. fantastic. thank you for breaking down the numbers for us on a very complex, complicated issue. thank you. you know who these are a doc and cultural shifts and that i've seen this go skin retaliation before the war. and guys who are the, who gets an on toilet, to go and religious rebel group from yemen, backed by, you know, for you or somebody ok have for these attacks, the direct trip to international call most and many times security they have responded by jointly cutting out strikes on who the targets in him and germany and other europe emissions are also considering naval emissions. but this be the pre