The Kremlin on Tuesday (23) called the European Union’s plan to use interest earned on frozen Russian assets to finance military aid to Ukraine a “theft” and said it would take legal action against anyone involved in the decision.
The EU’s top diplomat Josep Borrell said on Monday (22) that the first tranche of 1.4 billion euros in military aid to Ukraine, drawn from proceeds from frozen Russian assets, would be paid in early August.
“Such thieves’ actions cannot remain without reciprocity,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.
“Not only is this money essentially stolen, but it will also be spent on buying weapons.”
After President Vladimir Putin sent troops into Ukraine in 2022, the United States and its allies banned transactions with Russia’s central bank and finance ministry, blocking some $300 billion in Russian sovereign assets in the West.
EU countries are taking the interest earned on these frozen assets – essentially bonds and other types of securities that the Russian central bank has invested in – and putting it into an EU fund that will be used to help Ukraine.
The EU expects the assets to generate a profit of 15 to 20 billion euros by 2027.
Putin says the West has unleashed what he sees as an economic war against Russia, but he praised both the resilience of the Russian economy, which grew 3.6 percent last year, and the failure of sanctions to impede Russian trade.
The Kremlin has repeatedly stated that any seizure of its assets would go against every principle of free markets that the West proclaims and would undermine confidence in the US dollar and the euro, while also deterring global investment and undermining trust in Western central banks.
Source: CNN Brasil
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