MOSCOW (Reuters) -Russia will file a lawsuit against the seizure of Russian state assets in Finland as part of a claim against the country by Ukrainian oil and gas company Naftogaz, the Kremlin said on Tuesday.
Lawyers for Naftogaz said on Sunday they had obtained a freeze on Russian state property and other assets in Finland worth tens of millions of dollars. Naftogaz has been pursuing legal action against Russia since 2016 to demand compensation for Moscow’s expropriation of Naftogaz properties when Russia annexed Crimea in 2014.
“Of course we will contest this in court. Naturally, the Russian Federation will defend its property interests, so we will use all legal mechanisms to protect our interests,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.
A tribunal in The Hague ordered Russia in April 2023 to pay Naftogaz $4.22 billion plus interest and legal fees to compensate for the assets seized in Crimea, but Moscow has not done so.
Naftogaz CEO Oleksiy Chernyshov said in a statement: “As Russia refuses to pay the amounts due under the ruling, (Naftogaz) will continue to deploy all available mechanisms to ensure the recovery of these funds in target jurisdictions that harboring Russian assets.”
David Pinsky, a partner at Covington who is serving as counsel for Naftogaz, said the Finnish asset freeze was just one step in a global strategy to secure compensation, including actions in the United States and Britain.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in a statement on her ministry’s website that Finnish judicial officials have failed to justify or advise Russia on action to seize Russian property.
She noted one property in Helsinki that housed a Russian culture and science center for which no such notice had been given. The Russian embassy in Helsinki, she said, was seeking clarification on all procedures undertaken.
