On Sunday, two Russian officials threatened a “harsh” response if frozen Russian funds were confiscated and pledged that the West would face “endless” legal challenges and similar measures.
Maria Zakharova, spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry, said that Russia would never give up the lands it controlled from Ukraine in exchange for the return of frozen assets.
The US House of Representatives approved a bill allowing President Joe Biden's administration to confiscate Russian assets in US banks and transfer them to Ukraine, something the Kremlin said was illegal and would cause a reaction.
In turn, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that the West still has a lot of money in Russia that could be targeted by countermeasures from Moscow.
Yesterday, Saturday, Dmitry Medvedev, Deputy Chairman of the Russian Security Council, threatened to respond if the United States confiscated Russian funds frozen in Western countries.
Medvedev said that his country may seize assets, including property and money, of American citizens and investors in Russia in response to any confiscation of Moscow's reserves of frozen currencies in the West.
In response to the current Ukrainian crisis, the United States and its allies banned transactions with the Russian Central Bank and the Ministry of Finance and froze approximately $300 billion in sovereign Russian assets in the West, most of which are in European rather than American financial institutions.
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