Russia: The EU’s proposal on Russian Assets is ‘tolerance and theft’

The proposal of the head of her foreign policy, Joseph Borrell, according to today’s announcement (20.3.2024) was described as “Lost and theft”. The proposal includes the EU taking 90% of the revenue from Russian assets frozen in Europe and making it available for the purchase of weapons for Ukraine. According to Borrell’s plan, revenues from Russia’s assets, such as interest, will be transferred to the European Peace Fund, a fund located outside the EU budget, provides military assistance to countries outside the EU and has been used mainly for Ukraine. The Kremlin said that such plans, once implemented, would destroy Europe’s reputation as a credible owner of property rights and lead to many years of lawsuits in court. “Europeans are well aware of the damage such decisions may do to their economy, their image and their reputation as reliable, a way of saying, guarantors of the inviolable property,” said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov. “The damage will be inevitable. The persons involved in making such decisions, the states that will decide this, of course, will become targets of persecution for decades.” About 70% of all Russian assets, which have been frozen in the West, are in the central Belgian Euroclear repository, which keeps the equivalent of EUR 190 billion in debt and cash of the Russian central bank. When asked about Borrell’s plan, the Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman. Maria Zaharova. stated: “It’s simply robbery and theft”. Zaharova stressed that Russia would respond if the West proceeded to seize Russian assets. Russia has stated that it will take action against Western assets if its own property is seized. Strategic talks with the US Moscow also announced today that it will discuss nuclear arms control with the United States only in the context of a wider debate, stressing that Washington will not succeed in trying to hold talks on its own terms. “We are ready to discuss strategic stability issues only in a single debate,” Sakharov told reporters, when asked about media information that the US proposed talks with Russia and China. “D.C. offers to make dialogue only on US terms,” said the spokesman. She added that the United States has lost control of weapons they have given Ukraine, so it is difficult for Moscow to agree to talks with Washington on equipment. Legal targets SpaceX satellites Russia also announced today that it is aware of the efforts of American intelligence services to use commercial satellite companies, such as SpaceX, and warned that such moves may make the satellites of these companies legitimate targets. Reuters had broadcast this month that SpaceX builds a network of hundreds of spy satellites under a classified contract with an American intelligence company, making it evident that the relationships between Elon Musk’s space company and national security services were deepened. “We know about Washington’s efforts to attract the private sector to serve its military space ambitions,” Sakharov told reporters. Such systems “are becoming a legitimate target for retaliation measures, including military ones”, she stressed. Inadmissible decision of CERN The representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry also said today that the decision of the European Nuclear Research Agency (CERN) to discontinue cooperation with Russian scientists is politicised, discriminatory and unacceptable. CERN announced in December that it would cease cooperation with Russia from November 2024 and Belarus from June because of the war in Ukraine. “We believe such actions are politicised and absolutely unacceptable,” Sakharov told reporters in Moscow. “West increases pressure on our country in the field of fundamental science”. Zaharova added that CERN’s decision constitutes discrimination against Russian scientists. Source: RES – ICM