Lavrov confident Russia will recover assets frozen in EU

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has said Russia would secure the return of its gold and foreign currency reserves frozen in the EU.

Source: Russian news agency Interfax, as reported by European Pravda

Details: Lavrov said that the "legal aggression of Western countries" is manifested both in "an expansive interpretation of international law and in rewriting these rules to suit their needs". He cited as an example the situation with the assets of the Central Bank of Russia, which were frozen at the Brussels-based Euroclear depository.

"The European Commission, as I have said before, still wants to confiscate these assets and then return them to us only after we pay Ukraine certain reparations. We will secure the return of our gold and foreign currency reserves, I have no doubt whatsoever about that," the Russian foreign minister said.

Quote: "Now the European Union is inventing various quasi-legal grounds not only to justify what is essentially theft, but also to remove these funds from Belgian jurisdiction, because the Belgian prime minister categorically refuses to take any steps regarding their confiscation, while that is precisely what the EU leadership wants. And they want to transfer them to some account that would be an EU-wide account rather than a Belgian one. This is a completely blatant criminal attempt to divide responsibility and establish collective liability."

Details: Lavrov said Western countries are "trying to present the matter as if the funds belonged to Russia, but the profit from them, exceeding the agreed share, does not belong to Russia".

The minister noted this would be the right thing to do if the funds had not been subject to an asset freeze.

Background: Europe has put forward a new proposal for using Russia's frozen assets to support Ukraine, seeking to address Belgium's concerns over the legal risks it could face from such a move.

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