Could seizing Russian assets help rebuild Ukraine?

2011 , a metals tycoon and Kremlin insider, visited the team designing the , a $90m yacht he had ordered, to oversee its construction. His attention to detail proved his undoing. When Mr Vekselberg came under American sanctions in 2018, his foreign assets were frozen—but not the , which was held via a shell company registered in the British Virgin Islands. Then two engineers at the shipyard, remembering the meeting in 2011, tipped off the . A trail of money transfers confirmed that Mr Vekselberg did indeed own the . On April 4th this year Spanish police, acting at America’s request, seized the boat in Mallorca.Netting the was a coup for KleptoCapture, a task force set up by Joe Biden, America’s president, to track the assets of oligarchs blacklisted by the West after Russia invaded Ukraine. The has captured about $7bn in art, boats and property; Italy has impounded a $700m superyacht said to be linked to Vladimir Putin; America has held about $1bn in vessels and aircraft. Add in the chunk of the Russian central bank’s currency reserves that have come under , and nearly $400bn in assets have been blocked.