Top Biden administration officials have spent the last year quietly trying to figure out how to divert billions of dollars in frozen Russian money to cash-starved Ukraine.

The proposal the US has hit on, described in detail here for the first time, is based on a novel legal theory to justify seizing and transferring to Ukraine the roughly $300 billion in Russian Central Bank assets which have been frozen in the West since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022.

“The White House and the US government believe Russia should be on the hook for paying for all of the damage and destruction they have caused in Ukraine,” a US official said.