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Russia plans legal action to gain access to about $300 billion—roughly half of its foreign currency reserves—frozen in Western banks and other institutions as part of the sanctions placed on Russia after it invaded Ukraine.
“This is an unprecedented freeze, so we will be preparing lawsuits and preparing to apply them, as this is unprecedented on a global scale,” Elvira Nabiullina, governor of the Bank of Russia, said in a public statement.
The bank did not disclose which nations or institutions it will sue or what the legal justification for the suits would be.
Russia also said it will sue if the sanctions cause it to default on its sovereign debt.
The country missed two dollar-denominated debt payments when U.S. banks refused to process the payments. Doing so would have violated the sanctions, the U.S. government said.
The European Union imposed sanctions on Russia when it occupied Crimea in 2014; none were reversed by a legal challenge.
“The European sanctions are based on a very clear legal framework,” the European Commission (EC) said in a statement.
“Part of the European Union sanctions mechanism is the ability of all those who have been sanctioned to appeal the sanctions decision at the European Court,” the EC statement noted.
“The reasons for us to impose the sanctions are very clear, based on a clear legal framework” it added, “and the reasons are the illegal aggressions against Ukraine.”
TRENDPOST: The lawsuits will go nowhere, and take years to settle. While the Russian invasion of Ukraine is an act of war, it is no different that the long list of U.S./NATO wars including Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya etc. Yet, Russia, China or other nations did not steal America’s funds by freezing them and forbidding withdrawals.