A former Army officer who is now an MP on Parliament’s Defence Committee is urging the Government to investigate the possibility of seizing $300bn in frozen Russian assets to aid Ukraine’s war effort.
Mike Martin, who is the Liberal Democrat MP for Tunbridge Wells, brought forward a motion in the House of Commons and argued there was a “clear legal pathway” to seizing the frozen assets.
He told the Commons: “States are able to take countermeasures against other states if there have been grievous violations of international law, like genocidal abduction of children.”He shared the story of a Ukrainian child who was abducted by the Russians, but managed to escape.
He told the Commons: “Nineteen thousand children, actual verified, documented cases by the Ukrainian government, of Ukrainian children who have been taken from Ukraine and placed with Russian families, told to forget Ukraine and told to love Russia.
“This is one of the smaller estimates. The UN thinks there are 120,000 Ukrainian children who have been abducted and sent to Russia.”
