“According to our estimates, Western countries have frozen this amount of funds belonging to Russia, Cuba, Venezuela, Iraq, Iran, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Libya, and Afghanistan,” he said during a meeting with the secretaries of the Security Councils of the member states of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation in Bishkek.

Shoigu also denounced the freezing of Afghan assets by the United States, the United Kingdom, and Germany as one of the causes of the lack of financial resources that prevents the normalization of life in Afghanistan.

The senior Russian official ted that the frozen assets amount to approximately $10 billion, which Shoigu described as theft. jdt/arc/gfa