After increasing criticism from home and abroad, Switzerland is expected to freeze Russian assets on Monday.

It is "very likely" that the Federal Council will decide this at an extraordinary meeting on Monday, Swiss President Ignazio Cassis told the Swiss television station SRF on Sunday.

He cannot yet anticipate the result, but the final decision will definitely take Switzerland's neutrality into account.

In response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, numerous Western countries have imposed financial and economic sanctions on Russia.

The pressure on Switzerland has recently increased to impose similarly strong sanctions, especially since the Alpine republic is valued as a financial center by Russian oligarchs.

According to statistics from the Bank for International Settlements, Swiss banks' liabilities to Russian customers amounted to $23 billion in the third quarter of 2021, of which $21.4 billion was in the form of deposits.

Russian oligarchs also have stakes in major Swiss companies.

Dissatisfaction in the Swiss population

On Saturday, up to 20,000 people took to the streets in the capital Bern, and thousands more in other large cities in the country.

They demonstrated their solidarity with Ukraine and demanded a clearer reaction to the Russian war of aggression from the Federal Council.

The Ukrainian ambassador to Switzerland, Artem Rybchenko, demanded in the “Sonntagszeitung” that assets held by Russian government members in Swiss accounts should be frozen.

The sanctions list is getting longer

The EU put Russia's President Vladimir Putin and his Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on the sanctions list on Friday.

After much hesitation, especially from Germany, Ukraine's western allies agreed on Saturday to exclude a number of Russian banks from the SWIFT system.

The EU foreign ministers decided on Sunday evening, in consultation with the group of leading industrial nations (G7), to block all transactions by the Russian state bank.

This further limits the options for the Russian central bank to support the ruble exchange rate with international financial transactions.

The measure should come into force before the stock market opens on Monday.