MOSCOW, November 9. /TASS/. The resolution of the UN General Assembly on Russia’s frozen assets, if adopted, would be a gross violation of the principle of sovereign equality of states and state immunity, it would be "highway robbery," Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told a briefing on Wednesday.
The diplomat pointed to attempts by unfriendly countries to create a "quasi-legal" mechanism for Ukraine to use the so-called frozen Russian assets as a way of receiving reparations from the Russian Federation.
"A number of countries have long been trying to create some sort of instrument by which they can get their hands on what they call frozen assets, but in fact, they actually stole them [these assets]. The West is now actively trying to promote this initiative on the UN platform by developing an appropriate draft resolution of the General Assembly and adopting it, as they plan to do, on November 14. The goal is to hold Russia accountable for the alleged violation of international law in Ukraine, including human rights norms," she added.
"But I would like to immediately disappoint the authors of this initiative and put them in their place. Firstly, their only goal is to get the political blessing from the General Assembly to circumvent the norms of international and national law, in particular those aimed at protecting the property of foreign states and spending Russian gold and foreign exchange assets, which were illegally frozen in unfriendly countries," Zakharova said.
"The latter - you need to clearly understand this - will be a gross violation of state immunity and the principle of sovereign equality of states. In fact, this is a banal robbery."
The diplomat noted that "illegally seized Russian funds would be used for a very specific purpose - financing the US military-industrial complex."
"And, by and large, no one is hiding it," the diplomat said.
"Another thing is that it may be convenient to turn away or pretend (as one representative of a European state recently told me) that "you have no idea what degree of politicization is around, so don't think that we are voting against Russia, we are just voting to protect ourselves. But neither the international community nor its individual representatives can protect themselves with such a position, they can only contribute to even greater politicization," the diplomat noted.
Precedent of robbery
Zakharova recalled that the UN General Assembly resolutions are advisory in nature.
"Secondly, I would like to remind you that the resolutions of the General Assembly are purely advisory in nature, and accordingly, we return to the first point, they need it as political cover. The General Assembly resolutions do not impose any legal obligations on UN member states. The General Assembly in principle has no right to establish the responsibility of states," the diplomat stressed.
The Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman also drew attention to the fact that "if such a precedent of plundering Russian assets is created," then tomorrow any other state that Washington dislikes may find itself in the same position.
"There have been a lot of examples. The Anglo-Saxons learned how to freeze funds, but to unfreeze them - not so much," the diplomat concluded.