MOSCOW, January 25. /TASS/. The one billion dollars in frozen Russian assets in the US still belong to Russia, and if they are unfrozen, Moscow will issue instructions on how it considers these funds should be used, Russian presidential administration deputy head Maxim Oreshkin told VGTRK reporter Pavel Zarubin.

Commenting on Russian President Vladimir Putin’s recent statements that Moscow may transfer $1 billion in frozen Russian assets to the Board of Peace, Oreshkin emphasized: "The billion [dollars] belongs to Russia, and we will provide instructions on how we deem it appropriate to use them."

He pointed out that "if American banks, which are currently prohibited from executing orders from Russia, carry out these orders, then the transaction will proceed." "It's simple," Oreshkin concluded.

During a recent meeting with Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas in the Kremlin, the Russian president said that Moscow was ready to allocate $1 billion to support the Palestinian people through the Board of Peace, to which Putin had previously been invited by his US counterpart Donald Trump. The issue of using frozen Russian assets in the US to pay the contribution to the Board of Peace had already been discussed with the US and was raised during the Russian president's January 22 meeting with the American delegation in the Kremlin.