The West stands to lose at least US$288 billion if Russian assets are seized: RIA

RUSSIAN state news agency RIA said on Sunday (Jan 21) that it had calculated the West stood to lose assets and investments worth at least US$288 billion if it confiscated frozen Russian assets to help rebuild Ukraine, and Moscow then retaliated.

After President Vladimir Putin sent forces into Ukraine in February 2022, the US and its allies prohibited transactions with Russia’s central bank and finance ministry, blocking around US$300 billion of sovereign Russian assets in the West.

US and British officials have worked in recent months to jumpstart efforts to confiscate Russian assets immobilised in Belgium and other European cities, to help reconstruction in Ukraine, parts of which lie in ruins.

They hope Group of Seven (G7) leaders will agree to issue a stronger statement of intent when they meet in late February, around the second anniversary of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, three sources told Reuters on Dec 28.

Russia has accused Washington of trying to strong-arm countries in Europe – where most of the Russian assets are – into signing up to similar measures. The Kremlin has said that Moscow has a list of US, European and other assets that would be confiscated if Western countries press ahead.

RIA cited data which it said showed that direct investment by the European Union, the G7 nations, Australia and Switzerland in the Russian economy at the end of 2022 totalled US$288 billion.

It said EU nations held US$223.3 billion of the assets, of which US$98.3 billion was formally held by Cyprus, US$50.1 billion by the Netherlands and US$17.3 billion by Germany.

It added that the top five European investors in the Russian economy also included France, with assets and investments worth US$16.6 billion, and Italy, with US$12.9 billion.

Among the G7 countries, it named Britain as one of the largest investors, citing data at the end of 2021 which showed British assets in Russia were worth about US$18.9 billion.

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It said the United States had US$9.6 billion worth of Russian assets at the end of 2022, Japan had US$4.6 billion and Canada had US$2.9 billion.

Switzerland and Norway, which RIA said usually signed up to anti-Russian measures, had US$28.5 billion and US$139 million respectively at the end of 2022, it said. Data showed Australia had US$683 million invested at the end of last year.

Reuters could not verify the data cited by RIA.