The Kremlin is criticizing the decision of the United States to transfer seized assets of oligarch Konstantin Malofeev to Ukraine for the first time, saying that this step is illegal and will backfire on Washington, writes Reuters.

The Attorney General of the United States of America, Merrick Garland, announced the completion of the first transfer of confiscated Russian funds to aid in the reconstruction of Ukraine.

The United States “stole” the money, and such decisions “will boomerang,” Kremlin spokesman Dmytro Peskov said.

• “The confidence of investors and businessmen with assets that are one way or another connected to America has been undermined, and this certainly cannot remain without consequences for the United States,” Vladimir Putin’s spokesman threatened.

Peskov also argued that such measures require a response, without saying how Russia might respond.

He also noted that in the US there is no opportunity to challenge the decision through a lawsuit: “We have no opportunity to defend our rights in court.”

Premiere

The US Attorney General allowed the transfer to Ukraine of $5.3 million seized from the accounts of Russian oligarch Konstantin Malofeev.

• “I allowed the transfer of these funds (…) to eliminate the damage of the unjust war started by Moscow in Ukraine (…)
• This is the first transfer by the United States of seized Russian funds for the restoration of Ukraine, but not the last,” said the US Attorney General.

The United States announced in March 2022, shortly after the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the creation of a cell dedicated to the prosecution of corrupt Russian oligarchs and all those who violate Washington’s sanctions against Moscow.

Since then, the Americans have imposed sanctions and blocked more than a billion dollars worth of ships and planes, and frozen hundreds of millions in assets held by members of the Russian elite in American accounts.

Who is Konstantin Malofeev?

In April 2022, the United States confiscated the money of Russian billionaire Konstantin Malofeev, who is considered one of the main sources of funding for pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine. At the same time, American justice indicted him for trying to secretly acquire and manage media institutions from all over Europe, in violation of the sanctions that apply to him.

Konstantin Malofeev is a banker whose business includes the Tsargrad media group, which supports the Kremlin. Known as an “Orthodox oligarch” because of his support for the Russian Church, Malofeev considers Russia’s invasion of Ukraine a “holy war.”

After owning Marshall Capital Partners, among whose investors is the French insurance company Axa, Malofeev directed his fortune to create a media empire, whose Orthodox TV channel “Tsargrad” became a propaganda weapon of the regime of Volodymyr Little bit. He allegedly hired former FSB colonel Igor Girkin to provide security, and Girkin later became a paramilitary commander and then self-proclaimed defense minister in the separatist Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine, while another former associate of Malofeev was appointed governor.

Konstantin Malofeev was among the Russian figures who were sanctioned by the EU and then the US since 2014, since the annexation of Crimea. However, for the next three years, he remained a client of the Cypriot accounting and offshore firm MeritServus, whose officials allegedly helped Malofeev-related companies move money and provide loans, including in US dollars, according to The Guardian.

MeritServus was recently sanctioned by the British government after The Guardian exposed its role in transferring funds to the former owner of Chelsea Football Club, oligarch Roman Abramovich, who was also sanctioned by the West.