"On March 12, the Russian Foreign Ministry summoned the ambassador of Switzerland in Moscow, K. Marty Lang, to protest against the decision of the Swiss parliament to initiate the development of the legal basis for a mechanism that would allow the confiscation of state assets of Russia located on the territory of Switzerland," the ministry said in a statement.
The Russian side strongly condemns this step by the Swiss authorities, "which flagrantly violates the fundamental principles and norms of international law regarding state immunity," the statement read.
"Any encroachment on Russian state property under the guise of any contrived 'reparation mechanism' will be nothing more than theft at the state level," the ministry said.
If Switzerland confiscates state Russian assets, Moscow will take inevitable retaliatory measures, the ministry added.