Russia mulls arrest of European state-owned property

Russia is preparing lawsuits to arrest the European state-owned property in its territory, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said today, on June 19.

“Our economic operators are set for appealing to the Russian court with a request in response to illegal actions against them to launch similar actions  and arrest the property of the foreign state-owned companies in the Russian Federation,” Lavrov told RBC.

He said Russia will respond to the arrest of its accounts reciprocally. “It is inevitable. We can act on the international area in such way. Reciprocity can be both positive and negative.  In the given case, reciprocity will be negative,” the minister said.

EADaily reported earlier, Belgium and France froze Russia’s state assets, including the property of the local branch of the Russian Orthodox Church and the accounts of TASS and Russia Today news agencies. The Russian Foreign Ministry, in turn, threatened Belgium with arrest of its assets in Russia. By the evening on June 18, it became known that Russia’s state assets were arrested in Austria too.