Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday called the West’s freezing of Russian assets a “theft” and promised that “it will not go unpunished.”
The president’s statements at the Kremlin’s Foreign Ministry come a day after the Group of Seven agreed to grant a $50 billion loan to Ukraine using frozen Russian assets.
Putin accused Western nations of “now thinking of some kind of legal basis to be able to completely appropriate” the retained assets and foreign exchange reserves, and noted that, “despite all the machinations, theft will remain theft, and will not go unpunished.”
The measure made “evident to all countries and companies, sovereign wealth funds, that their assets and reserves are far from safe” in the West, he said.
The G7 agreed the day before to block sanctioned Russian assets until Moscow pays reparations for the invasion of Ukraine. This paves the way for the announcement of the loan agreement that will leverage interest and income generated by the more than $260 billion in stranded Russian assets, mostly in Europe, to secure the sum of $50 billion.
A US official, who spoke on condition of anonymity before the official announcement, noted that the first disbursements will be made this year.
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