The US is poised to pass legislation that would allow it to seize part of the $300bn of Central Bank of Russia (CBR) reserves that were frozen by the West in the first week of the war between Russia and Ukraine. US lawmakers are close to passing new laws that would allow Washington to appropriate the central banks money held in the US in an unprecedented move. The central bank money of sanctioned countries held in the West is regularly frozen as sanctions come down, but technically it remains the property of the state and has always been eventually returned once sanctions are eased. Under West…