By Anne Kauranen

HELSINKI (Reuters) – A Finnish court has ordered $4.25 billion in assets owned by Russia in Finland confiscated at the request of Ukrainian state firm Naftogaz, a court document showed, and the Finnish Enforcement Authority said it is executing the order.

Naftogaz has been pursuing legal action against Russia since 2016 to seek compensation for Moscow’s expropriation of Naftogaz property when Russia annexed Crimea in 2014.

The Kremlin said Russia would contest the Finnish confiscation.

“Of course, we will dispute this in court. Naturally, the Russian Federation will defend its property interests, so we will use all legal mechanisms to protect our interests,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Tuesday.

A tribunal in The Hague in April 2023 ordered Russia to pay Naftogaz $4.22 billion plus interest and legal costs to compensate for assets it seized in Crimea, but Moscow has not done so.

The District Court of Helsinki on August 13 ordered Russian Federation assets in Finland worth up to $4.25 billion be confiscated to secure Naftogaz Group’s receivables, a court decision seen by Reuters showed.

Finland’s National Enforcement Authority said it had executed the court order by confiscating and freezing Russian assets, without immediately providing detail on the assets.

“The value of the assets subject to the measures is significant,” chief district bailiff Aki Virtanen told Reuters by email.

On Sunday, Naftogaz said the assets frozen by Finland included “real estate and other assets valued in the tens of millions of dollars”.

“It is also the first publicly known successful asset freeze outside Ukraine in the enforcement of arbitration awards filed by Ukrainian companies against Russia for the expropriation of property in Crimea in 2014,” the group wrote in a release.

The Russian embassy in Finland said it had sent a note to Finland’s foreign ministry expressing “a strong protest” against the measures and calling for reconsideration.

“On October 29, we received a list from the Finnish Enforcement Authority of over 40 properties that had been seized,” the embassy wrote in a statement.

It said half of the confiscated properties were diplomatic properties, including residences of diplomats.

“Since they are used for official and representational purposes of the embassy, they are protected under the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations and Finnish legislation,” it said.

(Reporting by Anne Kauranen in Helsinki and Moscow Newsroom; editing by Jason Neely)