PARIS (Sputnik) — Last week, France and Belgium froze Russian government assets, including bank accounts, as part of a court ruling.
"This issue was brought up [during the meeting of Normandy Four foreign ministers]… We drew attention to the fact that illegal attempts to arrest Russian property, the property of the Russian state, do not help us promote bilateral relations," Lavrov stressed.
The court in the Hague acted on behalf of shareholders of Russia’s now-defunct Yukos oil company who claimed that the Kremlin had illegally forced the firm out of business. They were awarded $50 billion in compensation in summer 2014, but Russia said it does not recognize the court’s jurisdiction.
Yukos was declared bankrupt by a Moscow arbitration court in 2006 and state-run oil major Rosneft purchased the bulk of its assets.
