Lavrov commented on Germany’s plans to seize Russian assets – Kommersant

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, commenting on the request of the Federal Prosecutor General’s Office of the Federal Republic of Germany to seize Russian assets, called the German authorities “a thieving people.” According to him, the United States, in closed contacts, is explaining to the Europeans “how to change the laws” in order to seize Russian assets.

“The people are thieves, we realized this a long time ago. Thief used to be in this, you know, political sense, in the sense of refusing agreements, in the sense of trying to deceive someone. But now he’s a thief in the literal sense,” Sergei Lavrov said at a press conference following his trip to Tunisia (quote from TASS).

December 20 Prosecutor General’s Office of the Federal Republic of Germany filed a petition to the court in order to seize part of Russian assets worth more than €720 million from the state budget. According to TASS, the petition is at the stage of preliminary consideration; there has not yet been a decision to begin the trial. The Federal Prosecutor General’s Office does not name the owner of the funds and writes about a “Russian financial institution.” Der Spiegel magazine claims that the owner of the assets is the National Settlement Depository. In Germany, Russian assets worth €5.3 billion were frozen but not confiscated.

According to the Financial Times, after the entry of Russian troops into Ukraine, the G7 countries, the European Union and Australia froze about €260 billion of assets of the Russian Central Bank. Western countries are discussing the possibility of using these funds to rebuild Ukraine. Discussions are underway in the EU regarding the transfer to Kyiv of income received from frozen Russian assets. The US wants to confiscate the assets themselves, not the proceeds from them. Financial Times sources reportedthat the US authorities have invited countries to recognize themselves as victims of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, which will allow them to seize frozen assets and transfer them to Ukraine.

Read more about the conditions under which a Russian company can abandon assets frozen in Germany in the material “Rosneft is set to sell”.

Alexandra Goroshilova