Switzerland not support transfer of frozen Russian assets to Ukraine

Switzerland has not supported the idea of transferring Russian assets frozen abroad to Ukraine.

“For the Swiss government, confiscation of assets only on the basis of belonging to any state or being included in the sanctions list and using them to restore Ukraine is currently not an option to support Ukraine,” Gazeta.ru quotes the press secretary of the Swiss Ministry of Economy Fabian Mayenfisch as saying.

Earlier, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called on Switzerland to block Russian assets and transfer them to Ukraine. During a video meeting with the university community and public figures in Switzerland, he stated that if Bern did this, Ukraine would "absolutely rightly" receive "reimbursement for the occupation of Ukrainian territories."

In connection with the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Switzerland, like a number of other EU countries, imposed sanctions against Russia. According to the Swiss the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO), by early July, the country had blocked Russian assets worth more than $6.8 billion.