The Kremlin warned today that it has a list of US and European assets that will be seized if G7 leaders confiscate the Russian central bank’s frozen US$300 billion.
At a meeting in February, the leaders of the seven most industrially developed countries will discuss a new legal theory that would enable the seizure of Russian assets, two sources close to the plan said today, and an unnamed British official confirmed.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that such a move by the West would constitute theft, a violation of international law and endanger reserve currencies, the global financial system and the world economy.
“It would be a big blow to the main parameters of the international economy, it will undermine the international economy. It will also undermine the countries’ confidence in the USA and the EU as economic guarantors. Therefore, such actions carry very, very serious consequences,” said Peskov.
He also confirmed that there is a list of Western assets that would be confiscated by Russia in retaliation, but he did not specify which assets and funds they were.
After President Vladimir Putin sent troops to Ukraine in February 2022, the US and its allies banned transactions with Russia’s central bank and finance ministry, blocking about $300 billion in Russian assets in the West.
Some Western politicians are demanding that frozen Russian assets worth around $300 billion be handed over to Ukraine to rebuild its war-ravaged economy. Last week, President Putin ordered two European concerns, Wintershall Dea and OMV, to divest their multibillion-dollar stakes in gas projects in the Russian Arctic.
American and British officials have been stepping up efforts in recent months to confiscate Russian assets frozen in Belgium and other European capitals, Hina news agency reports.
