By Alexander Miller, emerging market consultant – Eurasia Business News, April 18, 2022

View on Moskva City, the Moscow International Trade Center, where billions of dollars are made every day.
Photo credit : Swann Collins, January 2022

The Deputy Speaker of the Federation Council, the senator Konstantin Kosachev admitted the possibility of nationalizing the property of Western companies that left the Russian Federation if Russian assets are seized in the West.

“If this is the West’s policy towards Russia, then the Russian Federation will have to act in the same way,” said the Russian senator on April 15 on the radio station “Moscow speaking”. He stressed that the Russian side has its own levers of pressure for this and “all those investments that have remained in Russia, and these are serious assets, of Western companies that have left Russia, can be transferred to the Russian Federation.“

“We will do that if there are simply no other options for communicating with the so-called partners. But this is not our choice,” added the Deputy Speaker of the Federation Council (the Senate). Konstantin Kosachev added that such actions by the Western countries are outside the legal framework. 

Read also : How will Russia respond to Western sanctions ?

Western governments have imposed sanctions against Russia in recent weeks, including freezing the country’s foreign exchange reserves. The Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said on March 13 that Western countries, as part of sanctions over Ukraine, have frozen about half ($300 billion), of Russia’s gold and foreign exchange reserves. At the same time, the Russian central bank revealed that the share of gold and yuan in recent years has grown to almost half of the reserves.

The international reserves of the Russian Federation increased over the week by 0.5% (or $2.9 billion) and amounted to $609.4 billion as of April 8, 2022, reported the Russian central bank.

The Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said on March 13 that part of the gold and foreign exchange reserves of the Russian Federation is in yuan, in connection with which the West is trying to get China to also limit Russia’s access to the Chinese currency.

“And we see what pressure is exerted by Western countries on China in order to limit mutual trade with China. Of course, pressure is being exerted to limit access to those reserves that are placed in our yuan,” added the Russian Finance Minister.

Read also : Russia moves to regulate crypto economy

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