SIMFEROPOL, April 20 Confiscation of Russian assets will open «Pandora's box» is an unreasonable step by the American authorities, undermining relations between the two countries, the Russian Federation will definitely take retaliatory measures, said Senator Ekaterina Altabaeva.
The US House of Representatives on Saturday by a majority vote passed a bill that includes a provision for the confiscation of sovereign assets of the Russian Federation in favor of Ukraine. The document is sent to the Senate for consideration.
“The confiscation of Russian assets is a step, an action that opens a “Pandora’s box.” It is clear that there are American assets in the Russian Federation for which retaliatory action will be taken. This will not benefit Russian-American relations, although they are already in the lowest point. This, of course, damages the reputation of financial institutions; this is certainly a completely unreasonable step from a financial and economic point of view,” Altabaeva said.
The bill contains provisions for the confiscation of Russian assets, including a “prohibition on the unfreezing of sovereign Russian assets,” “the authority to provide compensation to Ukraine using seized Russian assets,” and “the use of assets to restore Ukraine.”
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 introducing 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 in relation to 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 arrest of Russian state reserves; there can be no doubt that we will act mutually.”
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