Moscow protests Belgium seizure of Russian assets

The Kremlin has slammed as “hostile” Belgium’s recent order to freeze the assets of Russian diplomatic missions and other organizations, summoning Brussels’ envoy to Moscow in protest at the move.

In a Thursday statement, the Russian Foreign Ministry said it had summoned “Belgian Ambassador Alex Van Meeuwen on June 18,” adding that the diplomat “was told that Russia considers such action by the Belgian authorities as an openly hostile act.”

According to reports, Belgian authorities seized the Kremlin’s assets in a bid to secure the repayment of a contested Russian debt to the former shareholders of the country's now defunct Yukos Oil Company.

The order was issued based on a 2014 ruling by the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague, which requires Moscow to give a total of USD50 billion in compensation to the former owners of the Russian oil giant after the Kremlin dismantled the firm in 2013 over tax issues and arrested its chief executive, Mikhail Khodorkovsky.

Yukos was then sold off in a series of opaque auctions between 2004 and 2006.

Russian Economic Development Minister Alexei Ulyukayev also dismissed the asset seizures as illegal, saying Moscow would challenge the move.

Earlier, an aide to Russian President Vladimir Putin stated that the possible seizure of assets over the Yukos litigation had been foreseen, and that the country is preparing to respond to the move.

Andrey Belousov said Moscow will appeal the court’s seizure of Russian assets, noting that “the situation with the arrest of the property is politicized, [and] Moscow hopes to avoid a new escalation in relations.”

Meanwhile, French authorities have also frozen the accounts of Russian firms, including those in the French subsidiary of Russia’s second largest bank VTB.

“As of this morning [diplomatic accounts] were unfrozen… The sums are small, some dozens of thousands of euros, [but] Russian companies’ accounts are still frozen,” said the VTB’s Chief Executive Officer Andrey Kostin as quoted in local pressed reports on Thursday. 

Tim Osborne, the head of Group Menatap which represents the interests of former Yukos shareholders, said Britain and the US are also expected to carry out the ruling of the arbitration court in The Hage.

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