Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin said on Tuesday that Russia will impose temporary restrictions on foreign investors seeking to sell their assets and stakes in the country.
Russia’s decision comes in response to increasingly stringent Western sanctions and the announcement by several international companies to leave the country and halt investments after Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.
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The minister did not provide details, but said the purpose of the measure was to ensure that foreign businesses in the country had a well-thought-out decision and not out of political pressure.
“In the current sanctions situation, foreign businessmen are forced to be guided, not by economic factors, but to make decisions under political pressure,” Mishustin said.
Among the companies that have said they will stop investing in the country are oil giants Shell and BP.
Sanctions take effect and the value of the Russian currency falls
The sanctions that the West has already imposed range from restrictions on the central bank’s ability to use its gold and foreign exchange reserves to the exclusion of several large Russian banks from international financial markets.
The raft of measures pushed the ruble to an all-time low on Monday, forcing the central bank to double its interest rate to 20% and ask issuers to back the currency.
French Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire said on Tuesday that economic sanctions imposed by the West would “sink the Russian economy”.
The British government announced, on Tuesday, that it had added Russia’s largest bank, Sberbank, to the list of Russian entities targeted by British sanctions, and warned that the consequences would be increasingly dire for the Kremlin.
And last week London had already put several financial institutions on the list, which on Monday added the Russian Central Bank and the Ministry of Finance.
Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab believes that Western sanctions, including freezing the assets of the Russian Central Bank, will increase the pressure of the oligarchy on President Vladimir Putin.
*With information from Reuters
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