The war in Ukraine is reaching a pivotal point. Australia can help make sure that Russia does not succeed – and it will not cost us anything.
The pivotal point arises because US military aid approved by former President Joe Biden is about to run out and President Donald Trump has not committed to any more. In the meantime, European nations have not been able to crank up enough weapons production nor have they committed enough money to ensure Russia does not win.
The other element to the pivotal point is what is happening internally in Russia. President Vladimir Putin has eaten into nearly all available financial reserves. He now turns to the kleptocrats. Putin made them rich a decade and a half ago by facilitating their purchase of state assets at basement prices. They got wealth in return for ceding political power.
But the kleptocrats did not sign on to an unnecessary and expensive war that undermines their freedom and wealth. They want it to end, but Putin’s response has been to demand total loyalty. If a kleptocrat opposes, Putin sequestrates. Goodbye, kleptocrat. Assets stripped. One-way ticket to Siberia.
This is the new Russia. It increasingly looks like North Korea. It is on the brink. Now is the time for the West to tighten the screws. But it comes at a time when Western resolve and budgets are stretched.
So now is the time to confiscate all frozen Russian assets in the West and send the proceeds to the Ukrainian war effort.
What, you say. Why haven’t we already done that? And why have we had a dozen or more announcements in the West that new tighter sanctions are being applied. Why weren’t they all applied in 2014 when Russia annexed Crimea? Good questions. Legal nicety and appeasement are the answers.
Australia has successively frozen more and more Russian assets and assets owned by Russian nationals.
Their exact value and detail of Australian official efforts to find them is hard to uncover. Foreign Affairs quite rightly does not want to say lest it forewarn these criminals, and they move the assets out of reach.
Nonetheless, the lowest estimate is $100 million and the highest is $9 billion. Whatever. The important point is not the value but what is to be done with the assets.
In 2024 a Senate committee had an inquiry into Australian Support for Ukraine. One of its key recommendations was “that the Australian Government identify as a matter of priority all Russian assets in Australia that are subject to sanctions, and assess what legislative changes are required to enable the transfer of these assets or associated income to Ukraine”.
In February this year the Government responded to the committee’s findings. It said, “Australia will continue to work closely with Ukraine and our partners to support Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, and to maintain pressure on Russia to end its illegal and immoral war.”
But its lily-livered responses to seizing assets and transferring them to Ukraine was: “The Government notes this recommendation”.
Merely noting is not good enough. The re-elected Labor Government easily has the numbers to seize the frozen Russian assets and transfer them to Ukraine.
Sure, there are some constitutional niceties. The Constitution gives the Federal Parliament power to make laws with respect to the “acquisition of property on just terms from any State or person”.
The Russian owner of the property would have to assert that any legislation enabling confiscation was a constitutionally invalid acquisition of property. But the High Court has held that the forfeiture of the proceeds of crime is not an “acquisition of property” – so good luck with that.
There is no higher crime than waging an aggressive war. It is worse than simple murder. It is worse than serial killing. This is because of the magnitude, the level of pre-mediation, the making complicit the whole nation, particularly so many innocent, mostly conscripted, soldiers, and the exposure of so many innocent civilians to the whim of the invader. The Nuremberg trials identified Putin’s crime.
Putin’s invasion of Ukraine stands with Hitler’s invasion of Poland. Hitler’s blaming Poland for aggression and playing on earlier western weakness in not standing up to the annexation of Austria and Czechoslovakia is on all fours with Putin’s blaming Ukraine and NATO for aggression against Russia and playing on western weakness in not standing up to the annexation of Crimea in 2014.
Australia should seize the Russian assets for two reasons.
The first is to galvanise the vacillating, over-legalistic Europeans who have $US300 billion in seized Russian assets. Australia could set a precedent.
A $300 billion boost to the Ukrainian war effort would be decisive. It would be more that what Europe and the US together have given so far.
Russia has easily inflicted that amount of damage to Ukraine. Morally, legally, and pragmatically the Europeans should send the frozen assets Ukraine.
The second reason is that Australia should contribute to a Russian failure because that is essential to breaking the historic European cycle of war that we thought was over in 1990 and thought would spread to the rest of the world.
Trump’s pre-election assertion that he could end the war “in one day” reveals his ignorance of history and, ironically, his misunderstanding of autocracy.
The efforts at peace negotiations and ceasefires are as flimsy as the bit of paper British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain waved on his return from Munich in 1938 stating “peace in our time”.
Putin needs the war to stay in power. If the war ends, returning soldiers will reveal Putin’s crimes and the kleptocrats will want him punished for the wealth he has cost them.
While Putin remains, the war will continue. The only way to end it is to squeeze Russia and bolster Ukraine until Putin’s support falters and he is on a one-way journey to The Hague.
That is why the Australian Government should confiscate the Russian assets and send them to Ukraine.
Crispin Hull
This article first appeared in The Canberra Times and other Australian media on 29 May 2025.