Western firms face Russian asset risks — Italy shows the scale

Hello! This week we look at how Russia could retaliate if Europe moves ahead with plans to more boldly use Russia’s frozen assets to fund Ukraine. With Western companies sure to be in the firing line, we calculate how much firms from just one country, Italy, stand to lose.

Russia eyes profits of Western firms as Europe gets aggressive on Moscow’s frozen assets

Europe is inching closer towards much more ambitious use of Russia’s frozen assets, plans that could spiral into multimillion-euro tit-for-tat seizures, effectively unleashing a major war of confiscation between Moscow and Europe. EU leaders this week will discuss how to use €140 billion of the frozen reserves belonging to Russia’s central bank to aid Ukraine. If they go for the plan, Russia is sure to retaliate by targeting the Western companies that did not leave the country and have continued to profit there since the invasion of Ukraine. We tried to calculate how much money might be involved on the Russian side, using Italy – one of Europe’s most Russia-friendly countries – as an example. The Bell’s calculations show that we could be talking about hundreds of millions of dollars.