Zakharova Throws Tantrum Over Russian Assets Confiscation In The West

The Russian Foreign Ministry responded to the adoption of the new EU law.

On Tuesday, February 13, the official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova, responded to the adoption by the EU of a law on the confiscation of excess profits received from the frozen assets of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation.

The BBC reports this.

According to Zakharova, “this is theft” and “appropriating for yourself what does not belong to you.”

A spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry threatened that retaliatory measures would be “extremely tough,” without specifying exactly what actions Moscow was planning to take.

“Given that our country has classified this as theft, we will treat them like thieves,” she said.

On Monday, February 12, the Council of the European Union approved a resolution that allows the use of profits from frozen assets of the Russian Federation for Ukraine.

On January 29, EU ambassadors agreed on a proposal to use profits from Russian assets frozen in the EU to support the reconstruction of Ukraine.

On January 23, the European Union's High Representative for Foreign and Security Policy, Josep Borrell, said that a decision on the use of blocked Russian assets would be made before the next meeting of the EU Foreign Affairs Council, that is, before March 18.

Earlier, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that the outlines of the decisions necessary to transfer frozen Russian assets to Ukraine were already being prepared.

He called for the transfer of frozen Russian assets abroad, amounting to about $300 billion, to Ukraine.