Frozen assets, taxes on cereals: EU punitive measures will have “consequences”, threatens Moscow

Moscow promises retaliation to Brussels. The Kremlin on Friday denounced EU plans to use income from frozen Russian assets to arm Ukraine and introduce taxes on Russian grain imports to deprive Moscow of revenue financing his offensive against Kiev. “If these decisions (on assets) are implemented, they will have very serious consequences for those who took them,” said Kremlin spokesperson Dmitri Peskov. He also estimated that “European consumers will suffer” if the European Union taxes Russian agricultural products, currently exempt from customs duties.

Brussels proposed on Friday to impose “prohibitive” customs duties on Russian agricultural products imported into the EU, which are currently exempt to the dismay of European farmers, with a view to “drying up” revenue allowing Moscow to finance his war in Ukraine. In addition, the Twenty-Seven, meeting at a summit in Brussels, decided on Thursday to move forward with a project aimed at using profits from Russia's frozen assets in the EU to arm Ukraine. “We are determined to act very quickly in order to be able to use part of this money to support Ukraine,” said the President of the European Council, Charles Michel, at a press conference on Thursday evening.

The interest on the approximately 200 billion euros of frozen assets represents between 2.5 and 3 billion euros per year, according to the head of European diplomacy Josep Borrell, and these are the amounts that the Europeans want to use.