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MOSCOW, June 15 Confiscation of Moscow's assets by the G7 countries could cost them almost $83 billion — the amount they invested in the Russian economy, calculated based on data from national statistical services.
According to the agency's calculations, the volume of direct investment in the Russian economy by G7 members by the end of 2022 (there is no more recent data at the moment) amounted to 82.8 billion dollars.
The largest investor was Britain, with assets estimated at $18.9 billion, according to the latest available data. Next come Germany (17.3 billion), France (16.6 billion) and Italy ($12.9 billion). Investments from American investors amounted to $9.6 billion, Japanese — 4.6 billion, and Canadian — 2.9 billion.
The leaders of the G7 countries on Friday, in a statement following the summit in Italy, officially confirmed their intention to provide Ukraine with loans worth about $50 billion by the end of the year, which will be repaid from proceeds from Russian frozen assets. They also called on Moscow to pay $486 billion for damages allegedly caused to Kyiv, threatening not to unfreeze blocked Russian funds until then.
Since the start of the Russian military operation in Ukraine, the EU and G7 countries have frozen almost half of Moscow's foreign exchange reserves, worth approximately 300 billion euros. More than 200 billion are in the EU, mainly in the accounts of the Belgian Euroclear.
The Foreign Ministry called it theft, noting that Brussels was targeting the country's state assets.
Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov warned that Russia would be held accountable if its reserves were confiscated. According to him, Moscow also has the opportunity not to return the funds that Western countries kept in Russia.