Mishustin accused the West of stealing Russian foreign exchange reserves

Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin accused Western countries of stealing Russian foreign exchange reserves. He stated this while speaking at the Made in Russia international export forum.

“Introducing new packages of sanctions, unfriendly countries tried to inflict as much damage as possible on our industry, financial system, and intimidate the business community. To put it simply, hundreds of billions of dollars of Russian foreign exchange reserves were stolen,” Mishustin said.

Mishustin also accused the West of "terrorist attacks" on gas transportation infrastructure. Earlier, President Vladimir Putin called the explosion of the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 gas pipelines a terrorist attack. He blamed the "Anglo-Saxons" for this. At the moment, the pumping of gas in gas pipelines has been stopped.

According to Mishustin, the actions of the West are hitting the economies of Western countries. He noted that in an open economy, many markets are interconnected. “They (Western countries. -) are already facing record price increases, rising prices for gas and electricity, gasoline and bread. In many states of the so-called developed world, which until recently was proud of green technologies, they are returning to coal as an energy source,” the Prime Minister noted.

After the start of Russia’s special operation in Ukraine, Western countries blocked about half of the $640 billion (at that time) of the Central Bank’s gold and foreign exchange reserves, mainly assets in dollars and euros. Sanctioned banks were also completely cut off from these currencies, and partially - many other banks that faced the closure of correspondent accounts with Western credit institutions, which are necessary to service customer accounts in dollars and euros.