Russian officials on Sunday threatened the West with a “severe” response in case frozen Russian assets are seized, promising “endless” legal and retaliatory measures.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova stated that Russia would never give up territories taken in Ukraine in exchange for the return of frozen assets. “Our homeland is not for sale,” he wrote on the Telegram messaging app.
“Russian assets must remain intact because otherwise there will be a severe response to Western theft. Many in the West have already understood this. Unfortunately, not all.”
In response to the war in Ukraine, the United States and its allies banned transactions with the Central Bank and the Ministry of Finance of Russia and They blocked some $300 billion of Russian sovereign assets in the Westmost of which are in non-US European financial institutions.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in a separate comment that There was still plenty of Western money in Russia that could be targeted by Moscow's retaliatory measures.
“The prospects for legal measures (against the confiscation of Russian assets) will be wide open,” he said. “Russia will take advantage of them and ceaselessly defend its interests”
