Russia plans to retaliate in kind against the West for expropriating their foreign assets, according to Finance Minister Anton Siluanov, as the conflict between Russia and Ukraine ramps up significantly.

Speaking to Rossiya-1 TV this week, he said Russia intends to use the income earned on assets it has frozen belonging to Western investors.

He announced: “We are doing exactly the same. If Western countries have decided to use our assets and income from our assets, the Russian side will also implement appropriate actions. Therefore, we have also frozen the resources of Western investors, Western financial market participants and companies. The income from these assets will also be used.”

So far, America and its Western allies have frozen around $300 billion worth of Russian central bank assets since February 2022, when the Russia-Ukraine conflict began. Around $207 billion of these funds are currently held in the Euroclear clearinghouse. They reportedly generated more than $5.4 billion during the first three months of this fiscal year.

Despite repeated warnings from Russia that seizing its funds would be considered “theft” and a violation of international law, the U.S. announced that it would be using the proceeds from the assets to finance a hefty loan to Ukraine. In October, G7 states finalized a $50 billion loan to Kiev backed by the profits of the Russian assets.

It is not known just how much the Western assets currently being held in Russia are worth, although previous estimates place it somewhere close to the size of the Russian funds that have been frozen abroad. At the end of 2022, RIA Novosti reported that the direct foreign investments in the Russian economy by the G7, EU, Switzerland and Australia totaled $288 billion.

Tensions rise in Russia-Ukraine conflict after Biden loosens restrictions on use of U.S.-supplied long-range missiles

The news comes as tensions between Russia and the U.S. ramped up significantly this week after President Biden gave Ukraine permission to fire American-made and supplied long-range missiles for attacks inside of Russian territory, something that has previously been banned. It didn’t take long for Kiev to fire them, with one missile strike on southern Russia causing a fire at an ammunition depot and killing and wounding security personnel.

Moscow warned the U.S. and NATO allies that such a move would cause a major escalation, but Biden nevertheless decided to allow the strikes this past weekend. America and its allies argue that Putin has escalated the war recently with actions such as deploying more than 10,000 North Korean soldiers to help support Russian forces.

Not surprisingly, Russia reacted quickly after Ukraine fired ATACMS into Russia. Russian missiles targeted several Ukrainian cities, and Russian President Vladimir Putin said that they fired new intermediate-range ballistic missiles that American air defense systems would not be able to stop. Named Oreshnik, or “hazelnut tree”, he claims that they fly at ten times the speed of sound and that their use won’t just be reserved for Ukraine; any of Kiev’s allies whose missiles are used for attacking Russia could also be targeted. It is reportedly capable of carrying conventional or nuclear warheads.

He stated: “We believe that we have the right to use our weapons against military facilities of the countries that allow the use of their weapons against our facilities.”

Putin has also signed a new doctrine permitting a potential nuclear response to attacks on Russia, even conventional ones, that are carried out by nations supported by nuclear power, essentially lowering the threshold for its use of nuclear weapons.

Sources for this article include:

RT.com

APNews.com