Confiscating Russian assets would be "nail in coffin" for Western economic system: Kremlin

Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov (File Photo) (Image Credit: Reuters)

Moscow [Russia], April 28 (ANI): Russia on Sunday warned that any seizure of its assets would result in a blow to the Western economic system and it will be subject to “retaliatory actions and legal proceedings.”

“If this happens, if such a dangerous precedent is created, it will be such a solid nail in the future coffin of the entire Western economic system of coordinates,” Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in an interview with Pavel Zarubin, a journalist from the program ‘Moscow. Kremlin. Putin’ on Rossiya 1 TV channel, Sputnik reported.

The press secretary to Russian President Vladamir Putin said that in the event of seizure of frozen Russian assets in the West, Russia would take legal action and other steps.

He was further cited as saying by the Russian news agency that foreign investors and countries around the world will reconsider investing their money in the West if it goes ahead with the asset seizure sanctioned by the US Congress this week.

“Of course, foreign investors, foreign states that keep their reserves in the assets of these countries, from now on will think ten times before investing their money,” Peskov said.

On 23 April, the US Senate adopted a set of bills that had already been passed by the House of Representatives, including one that makes it possible to confiscate the Russian financial assets that the US had frozen as part of the Western sanctions and transfer them to Ukraine for reconstruction.

According to Peskov it was premature to talk about Russia’s response in the event of the West seizing Russian assets, but noted that there was also Western property in Russia.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and his government invested heavily in the euro and the dollar over the years to keep the ruble stable, planting USD 300 billion worth of foreign currency reserves. According to an analysis by NBC news in early 2022, following Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, all of the Group of Seven countries — the US, U.K., Canada, France, Germany, Italy and Japan — banded together and froze all of the USD 300 billion of Russian foreign currency reserves held in banks in those countries, most of it in Europe.

Meanwhile, Russian Security Council Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev said that Moscow’s response to the US legislation providing for the confiscation of Russian assets “will sting.”

Only an asymmetric response is possible. However, this doesn’t mean that it will sting any less,” he wrote on Telegram as cited by TASS news agency.

Medvedev also suggested enacting legislation to allow Russia to confiscate assets belonging to the citizens of unfriendly countries. (ANI)

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