MOSCOW heaped condemnation yesterday on the freezing of Russian corporate assets in France and Belgium over over the renationalisation of the Yukos oil company.

Yukos was set up after the dissolution of the USSR, when state assets were privatised, but went bankrupt in 2006 after its owner, oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky, was imprisoned for acquiring the company illegally.

Last year a Hague arbitration court awarded former Yukos shareholders £31 billion in compensation for the Russia’s break-up of Yukos and nationalisation of its assets.

Bailiffs reportedly acting on behalf of the Isle of Man-based Yukos Universal Limited gave 47 companies in Belgium two weeks to reveal whether they held any Russian state assets.

And in France, authorities froze the accounts of Russian firms held by the French subsidiary of Russian bank VTB.

Russian Economic Development Minister Alexei Ulyukayev said that his government would challenge the asset seizures.