The official representative of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Marija Zaharova, said that the money circulation of Russian embassies in Finland has been restricted.
MOSCOW The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs says that the freezing of the accounts of Finnish embassies in Russia is a mirror-like countermeasure to the restrictions imposed by Finland on Russian embassies.
Official representative of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs Maria Zakharova said that Russian embassies in Finland can only use their accounts in one Finnish bank.
– The Finnish side was asked several times the question of canceling the restrictions and warned several times that if the situation is not resolved, we will have to take countermeasures, Zaharova said at her weekly press conference.
– However, the Finnish authorities did not take any action in the matter.
According to Zaharova, the situation is against the Geneva Convention on diplomatic missions.
– It is amazing that when commenting on the matter, Finland forgot its own actions in relation to Russian diplomatic missions. How short is the memory, Zaharova said.
All bank accounts of Finnish missions in Russia have been frozen and cannot be used. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Finland has made a note to Russia about the situation.
He was the first to tell about it Helsingin Sanomat (you switch to another service).
It is about the accounts of the representative offices in Russian banks. Finland has two representations in Russia: the embassy in Moscow and the consulate general in St. Petersburg. They have had to take cash for help.
Already previously vice-chairman of the Russian Duma’s Committee on International Affairs Aleksei Tsepa has commented to the Russian For Lenta news office (you will switch to another service) and said that it is a response to Finland’s actions.
– We have repeatedly made it clear to Finland that we have countermeasures that we can take and that have a very negative impact on the Finnish economy, Tšepa said in an interview with Lenta.
Tšepa did not specify in more detail which Finnish actions Russia responded to, but Lenta’s story mentions the temporary freezing of the assets of the Russian Science and Culture Center in Helsinki in April.
The Russian Embassy in Finland, on the other hand published a bulletin (you will switch to another service)in which it claims that the embassy’s situation has been difficult since last autumn:
– We are only allowed to use one bank, Nordea, and making all transfers to the embassy’s account requires a lengthy approval process, which is additionally charged with a practically “prohibitive” fee of 5,000 euros, regardless of the amount of the transfer, claims the release.