Earlier in the year the US had looked at using the assets themselves to help pay for Ukraine’s defence, but decided that it would not be legal to do so.Mr Hunt said on Friday: “Britain will always act within international law, but the G7 have asked central banks to look at what might be possible because we are absolutely clear this is an illegal war, this war is against international law.”The chancellor said that the war in Ukraine was proving more “protracted” than people had hoped, and that the world needed to guard against what he called “Ukraine fatigue”.