Brenna Hughes Neghaiwi, Silke Koltrowitz

ZURICH, (Reuters) – The Swiss government reported Thursday that Russian assets worth 6.3 billion Swiss francs ($6.33 trillion) were frozen by sanctions against Moscow. It is a decline from the early April figures of 3.4 billion francs of provisionally blocked assets being released.

It was a drop from approximately 7.5 million Swiss francs of funds that the government had reported being frozen in April 7. Erwin Bollinger, the government official, pointed out that fewer funds were being frozen — approximately 2.2 billion Swiss francs — than had previously been released.

Bollinger, who is a top official in the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs’ (SECO) oversight of sanctions said to journalists, “We cannot freeze funds if there are not sufficient grounds”.

The pressure on Switzerland, a favorite destination of Moscow’s elite as well as a place where Russian wealth is held, has grown to quickly freeze the assets of hundreds sanctioned Russians.

In May, the U.S. Helsinki Commission (an independent, government-funded commission that examines security, cooperation, and human rights in Europe) called Switzerland “a leading enabler for Russian dictator Vladimir Putin” and said it used Swiss secrecy laws “to hide and protect their proceeds from crimes.”

The Swiss government denied the allegations “in the strongest terms possible”, and the Swiss President Ignazio Cass requested that the U.S. government correct “this misleading impression immediately” in a phone call to Antony Blinken, U.S Secretary of State.

Swiss banks may hold as much as $213 billion in Russian wealth according to the bank lobby. Credit Suisse and UBS are its largest lenders, each with tens or billions of Francs available for Russian wealthy clients.

Credit Suisse was the only one to freeze 10.4 billion Swiss Francs worth of this money during March, under sanction imposed in connection to the invasion.

Credit Suisse reported that the amount of money in Switzerland was not disclosed.

SECO officials stated that while banks and asset mangers can temporarily freeze funds, they must release funds if it is impossible to prove the assets be owned directly or are controlled by an authorized individual.

Bollinger explained that asset freezes “are not an indicator of the effectiveness of sanction implementation.” He also said that assets were not “by far” the most significant measure in a large-ranging set of sanctions.

($1 = 0.9948 Swiss francs)