Moscow is willing to contribute $1 billion to President Trump’s “Board of Peace” for Gaza, but that would require unfreezing Russian assets held in the United States, President Vladimir V. Putin said on Thursday.
In a meeting at the Kremlin with Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority, Mr. Putin said that if money blocked during the Biden administration were released, it could be used to support the Palestinian people and rebuild the Gaza Strip.
“I think this is quite possible,” Mr. Putin said of channeling the frozen funds into the American initiative. Mr. Putin said he planned to discuss the possibility on Thursday evening during a meeting in Moscow with Steve Witkoff, Mr. Trump’s envoy, and Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law.
On Wednesday, Mr. Putin confirmed that Moscow had received a personal invitation from Mr. Trump to join the board. He said he had instructed the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to review the invitation and consult with Russia’s strategic partners.
After the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Western countries froze Russian sovereign assets held inside their borders. Most of the roughly $300 billion in blocked assets is held in Europe. The U.S. Treasury holds about $5 billion in frozen Russian assets.
The Kremlin spokesman, Dmitri S. Peskov, said during a briefing on Thursday that it was not clear how any move to unfreeze the money could be legally formalized.
“This, of course, will require certain actions on the part of the United States,” he said.
Mr. Peskov said that the Kremlin’s offer showed that Russia had not “lost all hope that our assets will be returned. We will continue our fight, and we will defend our rights.”
Valerie Hopkins covers the war in Ukraine and how the conflict is changing Russia, Ukraine, Europe and the United States. She is based in Moscow.
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