Matviyenko warns Europe: If you take our assets,our response will impact you negatively 

MOSCOW, Apr.23, (ST)-Today, Valentina Matviyenko, the speaker of the Russian upper house of parliament warned Europe that her country has already drafted legislation to retaliate if nearly $300 billion of Russian assets were seized by the West and used to help Ukraine.

“We have a prepared answer,” Matviyenko was quoted as saying by state news agency RIA. “We have a draft law, which we are ready to consider immediately, on retaliatory measures.”

“And the Europeans will lose more than we do,” she added

Matviyenko did not give specifics on what the response would be to the seizing of Russian assets which is still under discussion in the West.

One option being discussed by the West is to confiscate the income on the underlying assets without taking the actual asset itself.

After President Vladimir Putin sent troops into Ukraine in 2022, the United States and its allies prohibited transactions with Russia’s central bank and finance ministry, blocking around $300 billion of sovereign Russian assets in the West.

Top officials in the United States want to seize the assets to help support Ukraine, though some bankers and European officials are worried that simply taking the assets would create a dangerous precedent.

The U.S. House of Representatives passed legislation on Saturday including a bill with a provision that would allow the confiscation of Russian sovereign assets, though the lion’s share of the assets are in Europe.

Putin says the West unleashed what he casts as an economic war against Russia but has touted both the resilience of the Russian economy, which grew 3.6% last year, and the failure of sanctions to stop Russian trade.

The Kremlin has repeatedly said that any seizure of its assets would go against all the principles of free markets which the West proclaims and that it would undermine.

Source: Agencies

Basma Qaddour