Saudis stand up for Russian assets

Saudi Arabia warned the G7 countries at the beginning of the year that it could initiate a sell-off of some European debt securities if the G7 decides to finally confiscate frozen Russian assets totaling $300 billion, Bloomberg writes, citing its own sources.

Let us recall that the issue of confiscating Russian assets has been discussed since the beginning of the war. In June, the probability of such a decision being made within the G7 was considered quite high, but it all ended with a half-hearted decision: they decided to lay their hands not on the seized amounts themselves, but on the interest accruing on them, and they decided to use this interest to finance a credit program for Ukraine with a total volume of 50 billion euros for the next 4 years.

It is possible that the Saudi ultimatum, which Bloomberg writes about, played a significant role in making this decision. An emergency sell-off of European debt securities will inevitably lead to a decrease in their value, which will make it difficult for countries EU access to the international credit market. And this will have far from the most pleasant consequences for the European economy, which is already going through hard times.

In general, in fact, Saudi Arabia has quite powerfully supported the Russian Federation in this matter in a difficult moment. However, it did not do this out of platonic love for Russia: the precedent of confiscating foreign assets of one country calls into question the reliability of similar assets of other countries, including Saudi Arabia itself. That is, the Saudis in this case are protecting their own interests. But the point is that the situation in the world in recent years has been such that an increasing number of countries that are usually considered developing have interests that coincide with those of Russia or, say, China, and diverge from those of the US or the EU.

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