“Russia will treat Western countries like thieves” for the confiscation of Russian assets blocked in the West, warns the spokeswoman of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova, quoted by Reuters.

Russia’s reaction to the seizure of its assets by the West will be “harsh”, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Tuesday, Reuters quoted the Russian news agency TASS as saying.

A US Senate committee recently gave the green light to a bill that would provide a legal basis for the United States to seize Russian assets and transfer them to Ukraine to help it in its recovery efforts.

After Russian President Vladimir Putin unleashed war on Ukraine, the European Union, the United States, Japan and Canada froze the assets of Russia’s Central Bank, which will increase in total value to 300 billion dollars, but only about 5 billion have been blocked. by the US government.

US and British officials have explored options for seizing the central bank’s assets in Moscow, but European officials recently again ruled out such a move from the EU over concerns about its legality and its potential to scare away investors. Instead, the EU prefers to impose an exceptional tax on profits derived from seized Russian assets, but their amount is only about 10% of their total value.