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MOSCOW, March 20 EU head of diplomacy Josep Borrell’s proposal to use Russian assets to finance Ukraine leads to the destruction of the legal foundations of European and international law, said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov.
Earlier, Borrell announced that he had submitted to the EU countries his proposal to use the proceeds from frozen Russian assets for military assistance to Ukraine.
«This is another statement in line with the movement towards the destruction of the legal foundations of European law and international law,” Peskov said, commenting on Borrell’s proposal. Earlier, a senior European source told reporters that such a proposal would arrive on Wednesday.
According to the head of European diplomacy, the proposal provides that 90% of the proceeds will go to the European Peace Fund, another 10% to the EU budget. Borrell also expressed hope that the EU Council will approve this proposal in the near future.
Previously, the EU planned to spend windfall income from frozen Russian assets on the reconstruction of Ukraine, but recently in Brussels they are increasingly saying that due to the difficult situation “on the battlefield” and the shortage of weapons and ammunition in Kiev, the money “can be spent on military support.»
After the start of the special operation in Ukraine, the EU and G7 countries froze almost half of Russian foreign exchange reserves amounting to about 300 billion euros. About 200 billion euros are in the EU, mainly in the accounts of the Belgian Euroclear — one of the world's largest settlement and clearing systems. The EU is discussing ways to use frozen assets of the Russian Federation to finance the reconstruction of Ukraine.
The European Central Bank warned that this could pose reputational risks for the European currency in the long term, and called for “looking beyond this isolated conflict” and looking for other ways to finance Kyiv.
The Kremlin stated that making such decisions “would be another step in violating all the rules and norms of international law.” The Russian Foreign Ministry called the freezing of Russian assets in Europe theft, noting that the EU is targeting not just the funds of private individuals, but also the state assets of Russia.
Earlier, Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said that since 2022, unfriendly Western countries have been imposing sanctions against Russia, its citizens and organizations, and the EU and other Western countries are actively working to create legal conditions for the confiscation of frozen Russian assets, introducing external control over subsidiaries of Russian companies, the property rights of Russian legal entities and individuals are illegally deprived or limited.
Russia will be responsible in case of confiscation of frozen Russian assets in the West, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov later said. He added that the Russian Federation “also has the opportunity not to return those funds that Western countries kept in Russia and which were frozen in response to the seizure of Russian state reserves; there can be no doubt that we will act mutually.”