Polish Foreign Minister Calls on the West to Escalate Tensions with Russia
Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski called on the West to escalate tensions with Russia.
According to RIA Novosti, sharing on social network X, Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski called on the West to escalate tensions with Russia, for example by confiscating the country's assets in the EU.
“We have to relearn how to use the game of escalation. For example, we can confiscate all Russian state assets worth 300 billion euros,” the Polish foreign minister said.
After Russia's military campaign in Ukraine began, the EU and the G7 countries froze almost half of Russia's foreign exchange reserves, which amounted to about 300 billion euros. About 200 billion dollars are held in EU accounts, mainly in Belgium's Euroclear - one of the world's largest payment and clearing systems.
At the end of October 2023, international depository Euroclear reported that, in the first nine months of 2023, it had earned around €3 billion in profits from investing in sanctioned Russian assets.
The Kremlin said that taking such decisions would be a violation of all rules and norms of international law. The Russian Foreign Ministry called the freezing of Russian assets in Europe “theft,” noting that Brussels was targeting not only private funds but also Russian state assets.