The European Union has announced its intention to send over the first tranche of interest earned by frozen Russian funds to Kiev next month, and Russia has vowed to respond to what it maintains is theft.

The European Commission's Josep Borrell announced on Monday that the $1.5 billion in interest will be sent to Ukraine during the first week of August to help the country cover its arms purchases.

A spokesman for the Kremlin, Dmitry Peskov, said that there will be retaliation against the West for expropriating the assets, with legal proceedings in the works against the entities that they believe stole roughly $282 billion worth of Russian assets. The money in question is still frozen.