‘Theft’ of foreign assets becoming a ‘habit’ of the West: Russia’s FM

Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has slammed the EU chief Josep Borrell’s idea of seizing Russian government reserves, stating it would be nothing short of theft.

In an interview with FT, Borrell suggested seizing Russia’s frozen reserves and using them to cover the costs of rebuilding Ukraine once the conflict is over.

In response to this, Lavrov said at a press conference during a visit to Algeria that “it seems fair to say that this is a theft they [the Western nations] do not even try to conceal,”

Such actions “become a sort of a habit for the West,” he added, pointing to the fact that the US had frozen funds “belonging to Afghanistan, the Afghan Central Bank.”

Washington has no plans to spend them on the needs of the Afghan people “that have suffered the consequences of the 20-year-long NATO presence” on their soil, Lavrov said.

Moscow would continue to oppose America’s attempts to “erode the principles the UN was based on” and to create a unipolar world order, Lavrov added.

Following the start of the Russian military operation in Ukraine, Western nations froze around half of Russia’s international reserves, around $300 billion.