Ukraine Bombardment: Russia Warns US On Frozen Assets

Russia has warned that it will react robustly to Western moves to seize its assets or deploy missiles.

Moscow could sever diplomatic relations with the United States should it confiscate Russian assets frozen under sanctions, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said on Friday.

Officials also said the Kremlin would respond to the deployment of missiles in Europe or Asia, even as Ukraine reported that Russia had unleashed another barrage of attack drones overnight.

Ryabkov threatened that Moscow could cut diplomatic ties with Washington should it hand frozen Russian assets to Kyiv, which is desperate for funds, according to the Russian State news agency Interfax.

Western countries are discussing the confiscation of more than $1bn in Russian assets frozen due to sanctions over the war in Ukraine.

The US “must not act under an illusion … that Russia is clinging with both hands to diplomatic relations with that country”, the official said.

Kremlin Spokesperson Dmitry Peskov later said at a media briefing that countries who seize Russian assets would never be left in peace and Russia would look at what Western assets it could seize in retaliation.

Some officials in US political circles have suggested that $300bn of funds from Russian Central Bank reserves frozen in February 2022 to put pressure on Moscow to withdraw from Ukraine be handed to Kyiv.

Peskov said any such seizure would deal a serious blow to the international financial system and Russia would defend its rights in the courts and through other means.

On Thursday, Russia promised to respond in kind should the European Union go ahead with a plan to ring-fence profits generated from frozen assets and hand them to Ukraine.

Prosecutors in Germany said this week that they were applying to confiscate more than 720 million euros ($790m) from the Frankfurt bank account of a Russian financial institution.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov called German leaders “a thieving lot” that have been taking lessons from Washington.

“They used to be thieving in the political sense breaking agreements, cheating someone but now they are thieving in the direct sense,” he said.

President Vladimir Putin this week ordered two European concerns, Wintershall Dea and OMV, be stripped of multibillion-dollar stakes in gas projects in the Russian Arctic.

ALJAZEERA