“There is one more crucial step that we can take making Russia pay for Ukraine’s recovery and reconstruction,” Blinken said on Wednesday.
“Our Congress has given us the power to seize Russian assets in the United States, we intend to use it.”
In April, the House of Representatives passed legislation facilitating the transfer of Russian sovereign assets frozen in the US to Ukraine. Moscow has warned repeatedly that such measures threaten to cause irreversible harm to the reputation of countries taking such steps.
"As for the legislation on the confiscation of Russian assets, we still need to sort out the details...If this is really the case, America will have to answer for it, and here there are unlikely to be any time limits, and we will do it in a way that best suits our interests," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, commenting on the passage of House legislation approving the confiscation of Russian assets and their possible transfer to Kiev.
"If this happens, if such a dangerous precedent is created, it will be such a solid nail in the future coffin of the entire Western economic system of coordinates," Peskov also commented on the matter.
Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said that the EU plan to seize Russian central bank assets was an "escalation of economic aggression" and a trade war, and warned that Russia would respond in a correspondingly harsh manner. She said that any attempt to confiscate Russian assets would be a gross violation of the West’s own law, international rules and bilateral obligations.