166
submitted 6 months ago by MicroWave@lemmy.world to c/world@lemmy.world

An ally of President Vladimir Putin warned Europe on Tuesday that Russia has already drafted legislation to retaliate if nearly $300 billion of Russian assets were seized by the West and used to help Ukraine.

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

Top officials in the United States want to seize the assets to help support Ukraine, though some bankers and European officials are worried that simply taking the assets would create a dangerous precedent.

The U.S. House of Representatives passed legislation on Saturday including a bill with a provision that would allow the confiscation of Russian sovereign assets, though the lion's share of the assets are in Europe.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] Monument@lemmy.sdf.org 21 points 6 months ago

The Kremlin has repeatedly said that any seizure of its assets would go against all the principles of free markets which the West proclaims and that it would undermine confidence in the U.S. dollar and euro while deterring global investment and undermining confidence in Western central banks.

Like establishing an economic collaborative consisting of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa that are all in talks to increase trade with each other, and ditch the dollar as their trade currency?
Like attempting to undermine the petrodollar as the world reserve currency for purchasing oil?

I don’t know what counters the west has in their bag, but it’s a little silly to make threats as if BRICS hasn’t been completely transparent about their plans the whole time.
It’s kind of an empty threat if you’ve been openly working on it for decades while the (more powerful) nations you plan to ratfuck have had time to prepare. I also don’t know how China would manage with a loss or rapid decrease in trade. They seem a bit too pragmatic than to follow Russia into a hole.

Some Russian officials have suggested that if Russian assets are confiscated then foreign investors' assets stuck in special so-called type "C" accounts in Russia could face the same fate.

I’m sure they’d have to target all western accounts at once. Targeting one type will lead to the rest quickly hemorrhaging their money out of country.
And I don’t think they’d wind up attracting new western investment for decades if they pulled a move like that.

this post was submitted on 23 Apr 2024
166 points (94.1% liked)

World News

39023 readers
2335 users here now

A community for discussing events around the World

Rules:

Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.


Lemmy World Partners

News !news@lemmy.world

Politics !politics@lemmy.world

World Politics !globalpolitics@lemmy.world


Recommendations

For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS