Russia Warns the West Over Asset ‘Theft’

Russia issued a stern warning to the West on Tuesday, cautioning that Moscow would respond firmly if the United States and European Union moved to seize hundreds of billions of dollars worth of Russian assets.

This warning comes in the wake of the Western sanctions imposed after President Vladimir Putin dispatched troops into Ukraine in 2022, resulting in restrictions on transactions with Russia’s central bank and finance ministry, effectively freezing around $300 billion of sovereign Russian assets in Western nations.

In response to the EU’s recent adoption of a law to allocate windfall profits from frozen Russian central bank assets towards financing the reconstruction of Ukraine, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova denounced the move as “theft” and “appropriation of something that doesn’t belong” to the EU. Zakharova emphasized Moscow’s firm stance, asserting that Russia would react “extremely tough” as it perceived the actions of the West as theft rather than political maneuvers.

Source: Reuters