Last week, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, with French President Emmanuel Macron, announced that the EU will use profits from Russian assets to arm Ukraine. Yesterday (20), the head of the European bloc’s foreign policy, Josep Borrell, presented a plan to use these resources
This Thursday (21), the Kremlin stated that Russia will take retaliatory measures in accordance with its own interests and will use all legal mechanisms at its disposal if the European Union goes ahead with the plans.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov made the comments ahead of a meeting of EU leaders where the issue will be discussed.
“Naturally, we will use all possible judicial mechanisms, those that are available now and all those that will be available in the future […] and based on reciprocity we will not retaliate in kind, but will choose different methods in a way that corresponds to our own interests,” Peskov said.
Borrell’s planning consists of sending a proposal to Member States under which 90% of revenues would be sent to the European Peace Mechanism – which is mainly used to reimburse governments for military purchases destined for Ukraine.
The remaining 10% would be sent to the EU’s regular budget, the diplomat added, according to Bloomberg.
Europe has frozen more than 200 billion euros in frozen assets and windfall revenues amount to around 2.5 to 3 billion euros per year, depending on interest rate levels.
Some EU Member States are still pushing to go further and confiscate Russia’s fixed assets themselves, but there are significant legal obstacles to such a step and resistance from some countries.
The official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova, commented that the delivery of proceeds from blocked Russian assets for financial and military support to the Ukrainian government will be considered theft.