The Kremlin on Wednesday threatened to “expand” the list of foreign companies targeted for “temporary” seizure of assets in Russia as a way to apply pressure as the West considers using frozen Russian assets abroad, AFP reported.

“If necessary, the list of companies can be expanded,” – warned the spokesman of the President of the Russian Federation Dmytro Peskov.

The comments came a day after Vladimir Putin signed a decree to take control of two Western energy groups, Finland’s Fortum and Germany’s Uniper.

The Russian president has also threatened to do the same to other companies in countries that may be tempted to seize and use Russian assets abroad.

Fortum announced on Wednesday that the CEO of its Russian subsidiary had been forcibly replaced by new management, confirming what the group said was a decree that had taken effect.

In a separate statement, the new CEO of Fortum DTP subsidiary Vyacheslav Kozhevnikov asked employees to continue working as before.

The European Union is currently trying to draw up a plan to confiscate hundreds of billions of euros in Russian assets in Europe, although Brussels admits the project is “difficult” from a legal point of view.

The main purpose of the Russian decree “is to create a compensation fund for the possible use of countermeasures against the “illegal expropriation” of Russian assets abroad,” the Kremlin spokesman said.

The announced confiscations – “a response to the aggressive actions of unfriendly countries” – are “temporary”, he assured, and are aimed at “eliminating (potential) risks when the position of unfriendly countries will negatively affect our economy”.

According to the decree, the Russian subsidiaries of Fortum and Uniper, a former subsidiary of Fortum that was nationalized by Berlin after it cut off Russian gas supplies last year, will immediately face the seizure of their assets in Russia.

Rossimuschestvo, the Russian federal agency appointed as the “interim administrator,” said the decree does not “deprive the owners of their assets” but means that “the original owner no longer has the right to make management decisions.”

A spokesman for the German Finance Ministry said at a press conference that Berlin “notes the decision of the Russian government.” “Now we have to check what the concrete consequences are,” he added.

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