MOSCOW, May 25. /TASS/. Russia will answer with mirror measures if its assets are illegally used by Western countries, Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said in a commentary published on Rossiya-1 TV channel journalist Pavel Zarubin’s Telegram channel.
"It has always seemed that the property of other countries, including central banks' gold and foreign currency reserves, are a taboo not covered by any sanctions at all. The ideology has changed by now as no fundamentals, no legal foundations are effective for Western countries," he said.
"Now they say the following: ‘Ok, we are not taking gold and foreign currency reserves at the moment, but we will allocate revenues from their use for targets that we define’. We have the same, all possibilities. We also have frozen funds on C-type accounts, we have assets as we also get profit. In case of a decision we will act similarly, with mirror measures. So we have an answer," the minister added.
Earlier, the Council of the EU passed a resolution obliging all financial institutions of the European Union, in which more than 1 mln euros of Russian assets are frozen, to start biannual transfers of income from their reinvestment to the European Commission (EC), which will then direct 90% of these funds to weapons for Kiev, and 10 % - for economic assistance programs to Ukraine. Thanks to such transfers the EC expects to collect 2.5-3 bln euros per year. The first transfer is scheduled for July 2024. The EU currently has about 210 bln euros of sovereign Russian assets frozen.