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I joined Judge Andrew Napolitano on his popular Judging Freedom podcast last week, among other things, to discuss the US $20bn to the World Bank as part of the G7's $50bn funding arrangement.
In the financial arrangement that has been put in place, the US gives money to the World Bank to fund non-military projects in Ukraine. Ukraine is liable for the loan and repays that loan with funds provided to it by the EU, courtesy of the profits generated by around $270bn in frozen Russian assets in Belgium. Big question; when the war ends and Russia wants its money back, who will repay the loan?
Always impressed by Judge Napolitano. Possesses a very sharp mind and there is no messing involved, just gets straight down to probing questions perfectly designed to elicit responses that provide a clear picture of the subject matter, with minimum fuss.
The big question is what Russia is going to do when the west refuses to free up their 300 billion, as I'm now fairly sure will happen. Litigation will take years; very possibly decades.
Are the Russians going to let the west get away with it? Medvedev has argued - as I had been wondering myself – that theft of sovereign assets could be seen as casus belli.
However, if Russia decides to litigate, and sees it through to its…