Threatening to Give a Firm Response if Their Assets are Touched by the West, Russia: Our Motherland is Not For Sale

JAKARTA - Russian authorities threatened the West on Sunday, saying they would give a 'firm' response if frozen Russian assets were confiscated, promising “endless” legal challenges and retaliation.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Russia would never hand over territories seized from Ukraine in exchange for the return of frozen assets.

"Our homeland is not for sale," Zakharova wrote on the Telegram messaging application, reported by Reuters, April 28.

"Russian assets must remain untouched because otherwise there will be a firm response to the theft by the West. Many people in the West already understand this. Unfortunately, not everyone," he stressed.

It is known that, in response to Russia's war in Ukraine, the United States and its allies banned transactions with the Russian central bank and Ministry of Finance, and blocked around 300 billion US dollars of Russian sovereign assets in the West, most of which were in European and non-American financial institutions.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in a separate comment there was still a lot of Western money in Russia that could be the target of Moscow's countermeasures.

"The prospect of a legal challenge (to the confiscation of Russian assets) would be wide open," he said.

"Russia will take advantage of that and will defend its interests relentlessly," said Peskov.

Last week, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei said Russia was considering downgrading its diplomatic ties with the United States if Western governments went ahead with proposals to confiscate its frozen assets, state news agency RIA reported.

The G7 group of countries is known to be planning to use Russian financial assets worth nearly 300 billion US dollars frozen due to sanctions since 2022 to help support Ukraine, when the Russian invasion is entering its third year.

However, how this will be done is still very complicated, given that it will set a controversial precedent. However, Ryabkov said Moscow would retaliate economically and politically if these assets were confiscated.