An ally of President Vladimir Putin has warned Europe that Russia has already drafted legislation to retaliate if nearly $300 billion worth of Russian assets are seized by the West and used to aid Ukraine, Reuters reports.
After Russian forces invaded Ukraine in 2022, the United States and its allies banned transactions with Russia’s Central Bank and Finance Ministry, freezing about $300 billion in sovereign Russian assets in the West.
Senior officials in the United States want to seize the assets to help Ukraine, although some bankers and European officials fear that would set a dangerous precedent.
On Saturday, the US House of Representatives passed legislation, including a bill with a provision that would allow the seizure of Russian sovereign assets, even though the largest share of the assets are in Europe.
“We also have a ready answer. We have a draft law that we are ready to consider immediately, for countermeasures,” stressed Valentina Matviyenko, Speaker of the Upper House of the Russian Parliament.
“And the Europeans will lose more than us,” warned Matvienko, who is a member of Russia’s Security Council.
She did not elaborate on what the response would be to the seizure of Russian assets, which is still being debated in the West.
One option being discussed by the West is to confiscate the income on the underlying assets without taking the asset itself.
Putin claims the West has unleashed what he describes as an economic war against Russia. However, he highlighted both the resilience of the Russian economy, which grew by 3.6% last year, and the failure of sanctions to shut down Russian trade.
The Kremlin has repeatedly said that any seizure of Russian assets would go against all the principles of free markets the West upholds and would undermine confidence in the US dollar and the euro, while hampering global investment and shaking confidence in Western central banks.
Russia has assured that it will challenge any confiscation of its assets in court.
Some Russian officials have hinted that if Russian assets are seized, the same could happen to the assets of foreign investors blocked in special so-called “C” accounts in Russia.
The exact amount of money in these accounts is not clear.
The speaker of the lower house of the Russian parliament, Vyacheslav Volodin, said yesterday that Russia has grounds to seize Western assets after the move by the US House of Representatives.
He pointed out that of the $280 billion in Russian assets frozen abroad, only $5 billion to $6 billion are in the United States and about 210 billion euros ($224 billion) are in the European Union.
Source news.bg
