MOSCOW, February 15. /TASS/. The West is making shameful attempts to legitimize the seizure of Russia’s overseas assets, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told the State Duma, the lower house of parliament, on Wednesday.
"A year has passed, and they are still racking their brains trying to find a law that makes it okay. I think it’s a shame for the people who claim to be a paragon of civilized development of human relations," he noted.
Lavrov pointed out that the West’s actions against Russia’s overseas assets "violated property rights, the inviolability of property, the laws of fair competition and the principle of the presumption of innocence among many other things." According to Lavrov, the move to freeze Russia’s state assets and private investments blatantly violates the agreement on the protection of capital investment.
The Russian foreign minister emphasized that it was the US and its allies that "proclaimed the end of history," thinking that the ideal shape for the organization of human life at the international level had been created, with everyone obliged to follow the rules. However, Western partners lied to Russia when they said that there was no alternative to the Minsk Agreements. "It eventually turned out that it had only been aimed at mimicking diplomacy," Lavrov added.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said at a press conference in Berlin on October 25, 2022, that the European Union’s goal was to seize and not to freeze Russia’s assets in Europe but the move required a legal basis so the EU had a lot of work to do.