Moscow: The task group dealing with the issue of freezing Russian assets will need to adopt an "innovative" approach to the task, according to Swedish diplomat and head of the European Union's "Freeze and Seize Task Force".

Ahnlied said the task force's plan to seize assets and use them to rebuild Ukraine "poses a challenge to find legal means that are acceptable."

He said that while there are not many precedents for such actions, one of them is when the US confiscated Iraqi assets at the end of Saddam Hussein's regime.

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"Hopefully, we can make progress while Sweden holds the presidency of the European Union, which ends in June ... However, these are complex issues." Will be," adding that his working group "needs to get a little creative going forward."

The task force, he said, is still trying to figure out "what assets we're talking about and where they are." There are two categories of property: privately owned property and state property owned by the Russian government.

The former mainly refers to the roughly $300 billion in frozen Russian foreign exchange reserves. Ehnlid claims they are easy to legally confiscate.

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However, the latter are more difficult to trace and can only be confiscated under certain circumstances, such as when it can be established that they are the proceeds of a crime.

The diplomat claims that instead of permanently confiscating these properties, the task force may decide to confiscate only the income or interest.

Ahnlid is not the first to draw attention to the challenges facing the plan to seize Russian assets. For example, the Swiss government has opposed the action last month, claiming that it would violate both Switzerland's constitution and international agreements.

In addition to citing potential legal difficulties, US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has expressed open skepticism, warning that such a move could be seen as setting a precedent that could undermine confidence in the dollar and the Western financial system.

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He claimed that nations may hesitate to keep money in American banks out of concern that their assets may also be seized. Several analysts also pointed out that the action could put American and European assets at risk as they too could be subject to seizure in the event of a global conflict.

Meanwhile, Moscow has repeatedly referred to the hoarding of its wealth as "stolen" and has threatened to retaliate if Western countries attempt to transfer Russian-owned wealth to Ukraine.