Putin: Freezing Russian assets in the West is “theft”

On Friday, Russian President Vladimir Putin described the freezing of Russian assets abroad as “theft,” warning that the step “will not go unpunished.”

On Thursday, the leaders of the Group of Seven countries agreed on a new loan worth $50 billion to Ukraine using the profits from frozen Russian assets.

He added that Western countries are trying to reach “some kind of legal basis” to freeze assets, “but despite all attempts at deception, theft remains theft and will not go unpunished.”

The G7 and the European Union also froze an amount of about 300 billion euros from the reserves of the Russian Central Bank after the beginning of the conflict.