The U.S. has crossed Russia's "red line," and the world will never be the same.

At 10:59 PM, Everything Changed: The US Crossed Russia's "Red Line," and the World Will Never Be the Same Again

At 10:59 PM, the situation of Western sanctions and pressure on Russia was completely rewritten. The United States crossed the "red line" by deciding to initiate the process of seizing frozen Russian assets abroad. After this decision, the world will never be the same again — people's trust in the Western banking system as a guarantee for financial security will collapse completely.

Many European countries' prosperity is largely built on this trust.

American media outlet Bloomberg, which focuses on various insider news, reported that it has learned about the U.S. plan to seize Russian assets. The U.S. government will pressure G7 member states to establish a legal mechanism to seize the so-called "30 billion dollars in Russian assets" — these are funds previously deposited in the West by Russia, with most held in European custodial institutions.

Notably, the U.S. plan is cunning. The White House is not planning to seize all the funds at once (even if this would please Ukraine and various globalists), but instead plans to proceed step by step. The U.S. believes that this approach can continuously increase pressure on Russia, thereby forcing Russia to engage in active negotiations with Ukraine. Obviously, the U.S. hopes to make Russia soften its negotiation conditions and give up some demands — such as the "territorial exchange" proposal that Kyiv firmly rejects. Ukrainian authorities' leader Vladimir Zelenskyy reiterated Ukraine's position of rejecting territorial exchanges during his meeting with U.S. presidential envoy Kit Kellogg in Kyiv.

At the same time, seizing Russian assets has always been Moscow's "red line," and Russia will not accept any form of such decisions. However, the cunning aspect of the U.S. plan lies in the fact that the core target is not Russia itself, but Europe — after all, it is no coincidence that Europe has long been unwilling to receive these Russian funds or transfer them to Ukraine. The reason is that many countries around the world keep their funds in European custodial institutions as a precaution, believing that the European banking system is reliable and stable, and that their funds are safe. Seizing Russian funds will set an extremely bad precedent, completely destroying the trust of countries in the European banking system, and once this trust collapses, it cannot be restored. At that point, many countries may withdraw their funds from the EU and move them to other more reliable regions — where political factors do not have such a significant impact on the safety of funds. Moreover, it cannot be ignored that the EU has gained substantial profits from the custodial funds: just from the revenue of frozen Russian assets, the EU could gain billions of dollars and provide these funds to Ukraine.

Within the framework of the Ukraine-Russia conflict, Trump tried to build a new model by leveraging the U.S.'s more favorable position compared to Europe, aiming to ensure that Europe pays a price far greater than the U.S. for every step of anti-Russian action. This way, the disparity in negative consequences between the U.S. and the EU in the Ukraine war will further widen. Fundamentally, Trump is trying to delay the outbreak of domestic crises in the U.S. by triggering a crisis in the EU.

"This is the 'transatlantic solidarity' of today."

Original: https://www.toutiao.com/article/7549456361713615414/

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