Zakharova said that the Russian embassies have access to their accounts in only one bank in Finland, which, according to her, violates international rules regarding diplomatic embassies.
– We asked the question about lifting the sanctions and repeatedly warned that if the issue is not resolved, we have to take countermeasures, he said at the Finnish Broadcasting Company’s weekly press conference. “However, the Finnish authorities did not take any measures regarding the matter.”
Helsingin Sanomat was the first news channel write on Wednesday’s development. The Finnish authorities, the newspaper revealed, were notified of the freezing of the bank accounts on April 27, as a result of which the Ministry of Foreign Affairs began an investigation.
Finland has two diplomatic missions in Russia: the embassy in Moscow and the consulate general in St. Petersburg. foreign minister Pekka Haavisto (The Greens) revealed in the media yesterday that the representative offices have had to rely on their cash reserves to pay their bills and rents, but assured that the situation has not affected the payment of salaries.
The restrictions are not expected to affect operations.
According to Haavisto, Finland has sent a diplomatic note to Russia, but it has not yet received an official explanation for freezing the accounts. He estimates that Russia may have acted out of “some kind of frustration” with the EU, when the bloc of 27 countries still supports Ukraine and condemns the war of aggression waged by Russia.
“The starting point of the problem is the war of aggression launched by Russia, which has been condemned internationally,” Haavisto said.
Other EU countries have also faced similar problems with Russian bank accounts. However, according to Haavisto, the Finnish missions have been subject to the strictest restrictions.
Reuters reported last night Russia has also frozen the accounts of the Danish embassies.
President Sauli Niinistö on Wednesday described the freezing of bank accounts as an exaggerated measure that clearly exceeds the money transfer restrictions imposed by the Russian Embassy in Finland.
“Russia claims this was a reciprocal measure,” he said for STT to Iceland. “However, this clearly exceeds the restrictions that Finland has set to limit the financial activities of the Russian Embassy in Helsinki. So this is an exaggerated response to that.”
Niinistö said that Russia has complained about its embassy’s bad bank connections.
“This is not so much because of the sanctions, but rather because the banks in the international banking system are very cautious and interpret the sanctions somewhat cautiously. But now Russia has moved into a completely new dimension than what the restrictions were aimed at [its diplomatic missions]”, he commented.
Aleksi Teivainen – HT
Source: The Nordic Page