Swiss Foreign Minister Ignacio Cassis did not rule out the use of frozen Russian assets to help Ukraine rebuild, but pointed out that there was no legal basis for this.
The minister told the Swiss Times about this, where he said: “We are waiting for developments in the international arena, but this is not excluded. Anyone who causes damage must pay for it”, while noting that there is no legal basis for such measures. In Switzerland at present.
Switzerland previously joined the recent EU sanctions against Russia due to a ban on the transport of commercial and brokerage goods sold above a set price.
For his part, Deputy Director of the Information and Press Department of the Russian Foreign Ministry Ivan Nechaev said that in this way Switzerland had lost its neutral status, and Gennady Gatilov, Russia’s permanent representative to the UN in Geneva, indicated that Switzerland’s position on Ukraine had changed. negative impact on the international role of Bern, noting that with the start of Russia’s own military operation in Ukraine, Switzerland has effectively abandoned its status as a neutral country in order to support Kyiv and its NATO patrons.
According to Gatilov, the former president of Switzerland (whose term expired in 2022) Ignacio Cassis, after a trip to Kyiv, showed support for the regime there, while the permanent representative expressed the hope that Switzerland would change its position, describing the country’s refusal to export ammunition to Ukraine as a “positive sign”.
Source: News