Russia has grounds to seize Western assets after US move, top lawmaker says

• The U.S. House passed legislation allowing the transfer of seized Russian assets to Ukraine, prompting Russia to consider confiscating Western assets.
• Russian lawmaker Vyacheslav Volodin warned that this move could provoke the EU to follow suit, potentially damaging the European economy.
• Only $5 to $6 billion of Russian assets are in the U.S., while about 210 billion euros are in the European Union.

Russia now has grounds to confiscate Western assets after the U.S. House of Representatives passed legislation that would allow the potential transfer of seized Russian assets to Ukraine, a top Russian lawmaker said on Monday.

“Washington has passed a law on the confiscation of Russian assets in order to provoke the EU to take the same step, which will be devastating for the European economy,” Vyacheslav Volodin, the Duma speaker and close ally of President Vladimir Putin, said.

“Our country now has every reason to make symmetrical decisions in relation to foreign assets,” said Volodin.

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Volodin said that of the $280 billion of Russian assets frozen abroad, only $5 to $6 billion was in the United States. 

Russian parliament speaker Vyacheslav Volodin attends a session during a vote for the pension reform bill at the State Duma, the lower house of parliament, in Moscow, Russia, on Sept. 26, 2018. Russia now has grounds to confiscate Western assets after the U.S. House of Representatives passed legislation that would allow the potential transfer of seized Russian assets to Ukraine, Volodin said on Monday. (REUTERS/Sergei Karpukhin/File Photo)

About $224 billion was in the European Union.

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The House passed the “REPO Act” which would allow the administration of U.S. President Joe Biden to confiscate billions of dollars’ worth of Russian assets sitting in U.S. banks and transfer them to Ukraine for reconstruction.