Russia summons Swiss ambassador over frozen assets plan

Moscow. Russia summoned the Swiss ambassador for a dressing down Tuesday after lawmakers in Bern backed moves towards allowing Ukraine to use frozen Russian assets.

Swiss lawmakers last week approved a series of motions that could pave the way for the government to work on an international basis to see how billions of dollars of Russia's frozen assets could be used for reparations to Ukraine.

Russia's foreign ministry said it had summoned Switzerland's envoy Krystyna Marty Lang to condemn the move, which Moscow said "grossly violates the fundamental principles and norms of international law."

Western countries froze around $300 billion of the Russian central bank's assets and reserves that were held in its jurisdictions after Moscow ordered hundreds of thousands of troops into Ukraine in February 2022.

Calls to use the cash pile to support Ukraine have grown as the war enters its third year, though there is no consensus over exactly how or to what extent the assets can be used.

Moscow strongly opposes the West using the funds for reparation payments to Kyiv as compensation for the damage caused by its full-scale military offensive.

"It was emphasised that any encroachment on Russian state property under the guise of some contrived 'repatriation mechanism' would be nothing more than theft on a governmental level," Russia's foreign ministry said in a statement after the envoy had been summoned.

More than $8 billion in Russian central bank reserves and assets are frozen in Switzerland.

The World Bank estimated last month that the total cost of reconstruction and recovery facing Ukraine is at least $486 billion.