Tue. Oct 15th, 2024

Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said Russia would respond “proportionately” to any actions the United States and its allies might take towards Russian assets frozen abroad.

Siluanov explained in an interview with the RIA Novosti news agency that Russia possesses frozen assets no less valuable than those held by the West, without specifying the intended assets.

Siluanov noted that comprehensive international measures imposed on Russia by the special military operation have led to the freezing of a range of assets abroad, including about $300 billion belonging to the Bank of Russia, and reports indicate that there is a campaign to seize these assets and transfer the proceeds to Kiev.

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak called on the Group of Seven to be “bolder” in confiscating frozen Russian assets.

French President Emmanuel Macron is organizing a meeting in Paris to discuss support for Ukraine, where the issue of confiscating frozen Russian assets may be raised.

On the other hand, Russia has frozen funds held by non-residents from countries it considered “unfriendly” in special “C” accounts, amounting to more than 280 billion rubles (about $3 billion) as of November 2022.

Although the size of the assets frozen has not been disclosed since then, previous reports indicated that the total rose to nearly 600 billion rubles by the end of 2022.

According to Siluanov, the freezing of Russian assets affects the actions of other countries, as the Chinese reduce their participation in US securities as a result of these developments, citing the undermining of the reliability of the dollar and the euro globally.

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