Sanctions: 200 Russian Bank Accounts Frozen in Austria
In the course of the sanctions against Russia due to the invasion of Ukraine, about 200 accounts in Austria have already been frozen. This means that assets of one billion euros are affected.
Austria has frozen about 200 accounts in recent months due to the sanctions against Russia. / Picture: © Wikimedia Commons / Gryffindor, CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/)
The sanctions against Russia, which were imposed because of the invasion of Ukraine, divide opinion. While some political parties, such as the right-wing FPÖ, are calling for an end to the sanctions, the government continues to stay the course.
Minister for European Affairs Karoline Edtstadler recently spoke out in favour of maintaining the sanctions. Now it has been made public that Austria has already frozen more than 200 accounts containing Russian assets due to the sanctions.
This is because the sanctions "have an effect where they should have an effect, namely in Russia". The measures are a "sharp", but at the same time also the "mildest" option to react to the Kremlin's breach of international law, the minister said.
For example, according to State Protection Director Omar Haijawi-Pirchner, three individuals and seven companies have been sanctioned so far for non-compliance with Russia sanctions.
However, it is often difficult to find out the true facts of the case because ownership is often concealed.
According to him, Austria also accounts for 13% of the money of Russian origin that has been frozen in the EU so far.
In the meantime, the amount is in the billions, whereby in Austria not only almost 200 accounts are affected, but also real estate and valuable material goods such as cars.
As far as a report in the New York Times on money flows from Russia to political parties and politicians in Europe is concerned, according to Haijawi-Pirchner, Austria is not affected by the aforementioned document.
In order to support Ukraine in the investigation of war crimes, 10 experts from Ukraine were recently in training at the Federal Criminal Police Office, according to Interior Minister Karner.
Karner also reported that the number of asylum fast-track procedures had recently risen sharply: by the end of August this year, there had been 11,500 negative decisions in such fast-track procedures for persons from safe countries of origin. Currently, there are about 90,000 persons in basic care, 56,000 of them Ukrainians.