Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov called on the West not to attempt to confiscate Russian assets and warned that retaliatory actions could follow, DPA reported, quoted by BTA.
The possibility of confiscating Russian assets discussed by the US, Great Britain and the EU is accompanied by calls to use the funds to help Ukraine, including for weapons, DPA notes.
Peskov hinted today that if any step is taken to seize Russian assets abroad, Moscow may seize foreign assets.
"Of course, with such decisions, very broad legal perspectives will arise. And Russia will naturally take advantage of these judicial prospects and will constantly defend its interests in this regard," Peskov said in an interview with Russian television. The Kremlin spokesman also warned that other foreign investors could also lose confidence in the West if it got its hands on Russian assets. "Reliability disappears overnight because of a stupid, thoughtless decision," Peskov pointed out.
After the start of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the EU and other countries froze assets of the Russian Central Bank worth hundreds of billions of dollars, DPA recalls. The current EU proposal does not provide for the expropriation of the main assets, but the idea is to provide the revenues from them to Ukraine.
"Russian assets should not be touched, otherwise there will be a harsh response to this Western theft," wrote in "Telegram" the spokeswoman of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova. "And many people in the West have already understood this. Unfortunately, not all," she added.
/НВ/