Russia considers the “freezing” of its international reserves unprecedented and is going to challenge those decisions, the head of the country’s central bank Elvira Nabiullina said on Monday.

“We will prepare all the lawsuits because this is unprecedented on a global scale,” Nabiullina said during a discussion in the State Duma.

“Still, our reserves are not arrested, but “frozen.” They cannot be used, but they have not been seized, they are not expropriated, they are not arrested, they are “frozen” and we will, of course, challenge this in all cases,” she stressed.

According to the Finance Ministry, Russia has a total of about $640 billion in reserves, of which some $300 billion has been frozen as part of sanctions imposed by the US, the EU, and their allies over Moscow’s military operation in Ukraine.

Moscow could not have foreseen such a development, and the freeze essentially constitutes theft, according to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. Some experts have also called the freeze of Russian assets the biggest loss in credibility for the US and its allies, and for the Western financial system.

Source: Agencies