MOSCOW, June 8. /TASS/. The West has robbed Russia and its businessmen, so they are trying to find ways to fight for their interests and get back what is rightfully theirs, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Thursday.
When asked if the Kremlin considers it acceptable to use the frozen funds of European depositories to compensate Russian investors for their losses, Peskov said: "Of course, our entrepreneurs and the state itself have all been robbed by the West."
"[This occurred] in different ways, but they all were robbed by the West," he stressed.
"Both the state, entrepreneurs, and groups of entrepreneurs - they are trying to come up with some ways to fight for their interests, defend their interests in order to get back the assets which were blocked, confiscated, but belong to them," the spokesman said.
According to him, "this will be a very difficult, very long road, because those who committed this robbery - the countries of the collective West - violated all the basic rules and principles and trampled on property rights."
"The efforts [of Russian businesses to fight for frozen assets] are absolutely justified, they are understandable, they must be continued," the Kremlin spokesman said.
"And the state will continue to do this as well," he added.
When asked to comment on media reports that Russian investors are preparing a class action lawsuit against Euroclear and Clearstream to unblock assets abroad with the expectation of getting their funds back from foreign assets frozen in Russia, Peskov said: "As for this option, it’s probably not quite right for the [presidential] administration to comment on it."
"As for the forecast for performance and efficiency - let's leave it to the specialists," the Kremlin official said.
"But you definitely need to fight for your property," he summed up.
In this regard, Peskov also drew attention to the fact that Russia is now "limited in its rights to use European courts to defend its interests."
"They do not grant this right to our entrepreneurs, only a few large entrepreneurs have recently managed <...> to achieve some success in European courts to assert their rights," he said.