No-longer-neutral Switzerland freezes $14.2bln of Russian assets
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Switzerland takes another step toward supporting Ukraine against Russia by seizing billions worth of Russian assets.
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The building of the Swiss National Bank (SNB) is pictured on April 25, 2019, in Bern, Switzerland. (AFP)
Switzerland has blocked around $14.2 billion, or 13 billion francs, in Russian assets held in the country, including more than 7 billion francs in reserves and assets of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation, according to Bloomberg.
The total private assets frozen as of the end of 2023 was 5.8 billion francs, the State Secretariat of Economic Affairs said on Tuesday.
Switzerland broke its supposed neutrality policy to adopt European Union sanctions against Russia following the Special Military Operation in Ukraine.
Earlier in March, Russia summoned the Swiss ambassador after lawmakers in Bern backed moves toward allowing Ukraine to use frozen Russian assets. Swiss lawmakers last week approved a series of motions that could pave the way for the government to work on an international basis to see how billions of dollars of Russia's frozen assets could be used for "reparations" to Ukraine.
Russia's Foreign Ministry said it had summoned Switzerland's envoy Krystyna Marty Lang to condemn the move, which Moscow said "grossly violates the fundamental principles and norms of international law."
Western governments' actions have even the IMF worried
Western countries have now frozen around $300 billion of the Russian central bank's assets and reserves that were held in their jurisdictions after the start of the war in Ukraine. The use of Russian assets to fund the Ukrainian regime without legal justification has even spurred criticism from the director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) European Department, Alfred Kammer.
"With regard to the seizure of Russia’s assets … our view is that is something for the relevant jurisdictions and courts to determine and to decide," Kammer told a press briefing on Friday, adding, "From our side, what is important is that whatever action is taken, that the implications of the functioning of the international monetary system are being taken into account."
Kammer, reiterating the IMF’s previous statements on the issue, recalled IMF managing director Kristalina Georgieva’s words, that "one needs to be wary of unintended consequences" of such actions.
"And again, this is the issue of a multilateral rules-based system and a well-functioning international monetary and financial system, which we all should be respectful for because it delivered… prosperity over last decades," Kammer stated.
However, the West has insisted and continues to insist on dragging the international order, which it had contributed to hugely, to the abyss. It is doing so not only by crossing clear red lines and repossessing state assets but also through its unjustified backing of the Israeli genocide of the Palestinian people in Gaza. The completely polar opposite reactions to the war in Ukraine and the Israeli genocidal war on Gaza have highlighted ever so clearly the hypocrisy of Western legal standards and morality, a de facto practice that is undeniable and impossible to refute.
Read more: Foreign firms lose $107 billion after exiting Russia: Reuters
