He drew attention to a Wall Street Journal report that Germany likely wants to leave Russia’s frozen assets intact to use as a tool during settlement talks to force Russia to give up some of the Ukrainian territory it has taken control of.
“Russian assets must remain intact. Otherwise, a harsh response will follow the theft of the West. Many in the West understand this. I hope everyone does,” Zakharova wrote on her Telegram channel.
“I don’t know who says what, but we don’t exchange assets for territories. “We never negotiated our homeland,” she emphasized.
The European Union, Canada, the United States and Japan have frozen Russian assets worth about $300 billion since the start of their special military operation in Ukraine. Of this sum, the United States accounts for between 5 and 6 billion dollars.
On April 24, the US Senate passed a package of bills to provide military aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, seize Russia’s frozen assets for transfer to kyiv, and impose additional sanctions on China.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has also said that confiscating Russian assets would be a nail in the coffin of the entire Western economic system.
“If this happens, if such a dangerous precedent is created, it will be such a solid nail in the future coffin of the entire Western economic coordinate system,” Peskov said in an interview with Pavel Zarubin, a journalist for the “Moscow” program. . Kremlin. Putin’ on the Rossiya 1 television channel.
Peskov, press secretary for Russian President Vladimir Putin, also said that foreign investors and countries around the world will reconsider investing their money in the West if the asset seizure sanctioned by the US Congress this week goes ahead.
“Of course, foreign investors, foreign states that keep their reserves in the assets of these countries, from now on will think ten times before investing their money,” Peskov continued, adding: “Reliability disappears overnight. in the morning due to a thoughtless decision. It is restored (only after) decades, or even more.”
He said it was too early to talk about Russia’s response if the West seized Russian assets, but noted that there were also Western properties in Russia.
“It is premature to talk about this,” Peskov said, adding: “Of course, there is Western money here. We have Western money of various structures. Now is not the time to specify.”
However, he stressed that in the event of seizure of Russian assets frozen in the West, Russia would take legal and other measures.
“Of course, such decisions will have very broad judicial perspectives. And, of course, Russia will take advantage of these judicial perspectives and relentlessly defend its interests in this area,” the spokesperson continued.