Russia threatens West with extreme response if its property are touched

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russian officers threatened the West on Sunday with a “extreme” response within the occasion that frozen Russian property are confiscated, promising “countless” authorized challenges and tit-for-tat measures.

Russian International Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova mentioned Russia would by no means cede territories seized from Ukraine in alternate for the return of frozen property.

“Our motherland just isn’t on the market,” Zakharova wrote on the Telegram messaging app.

“An Russian property should stay untouched as a result of in any other case there will likely be a extreme response to Western thievery. Many within the West have already understood this. Alas, not everybody.”

In response to Russia’s struggle in Ukraine, the US and its allies prohibited transactions with Russia’s central financial institution and finance ministry and blocked about $300 billion of sovereign Russian property within the West, most of that are in European not American monetary establishments.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov mentioned in a separate remark that there was nonetheless plenty of Western cash in Russia which might be focused by Moscow’s counter-measures.

“The prospects for authorized challenges (towards the confiscation of Russian property) will likely be large open,” he mentioned. “Russia will benefit from these and can endlessly defend its pursuits.”

(Reporting by Reuters; Modifying by; Alexandra Hudson and Sharon Singleton)