Russia will confiscate assets belonging to European Union states it deems unfriendly if the bloc "steals" frozen Russian funds in a drive to fund Ukraine, an ally of President Vladimir Putin said on October 29. Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, said on October 27 that the EU executive was working on a proposal to pool some of the profits derived from frozen Russian state assets to help Ukraine and its postwar reconstruction. Vyacheslav Volodin, the State Duma chairman, said Moscow would retaliate in a way that would be more costly to the bloc if the EU moved against Russian assets.
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