Cyprus protests portrayal as safe haven for Russian money

NICOSIA, Cyprus (AP) — Cyprus’s finance minister says the country has frozen about 1.5 billion euros ($1.6 billion) in Russian-linked deposits and assets in accordance with European Union sanctions over the war in Ukraine. He also told a press conference Thursday that Russian deposits in Cypriot banks have fallen from a stunning 40% of the total before the 2013 financial crisis — when big depositors were forced to take a cut on their money — to 3.8%. He was responding to a report this week in the CBS 60 Minutes show, which suggested Cyprus still hosts a maze of shell companies concealing assets of sanctioned Russians, and that such assets Cyprus has frozen are a fraction of the total.