Should the EU pull the trigger and decide to use profits from frozen Russian assets to procure weapons and ammunition for Ukraine, it would be perfectly legal, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said at a press conference following an EU summit, TASS reports.
"I believe that using the profits [would] be a great step, as well as spending them on military aid," he noted. "I would like to point out that these are absolutely legal actions. We have carefully checked international law and other laws that need to be respected here, and said that these <...> profits don’t belong to anyone, which is why the EU can take and use them," Scholz added.
"We have created a legal framework. Now, there is a need to establish the basis for using [the profits], which is what the European Commission is working on. We have issued instructions on where they should be spent: in the future, largely on [Ukraine’s] ammunition and weapons needs," Scholz said.