On Wednesday, President Vladimir Putin issued a decree that allows Russian investors to “exchange” their frozen assets abroad for the frozen assets of foreign firms in Russia.

Western countries imposed a series of sanctions on Russia after Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine in late February last year, cutting off its banks from international payments and freezing Russian assets overseas.

The Kremlin said that more than $16 billion of foreign investments owned by Russian citizens are now trapped abroad.

As a countermeasure, Russia froze some assets of foreign investors and companies in its country in “Type-C” accounts.

The decree states that Russian residents can swap their blocked assets abroad for up to 100,000 rubles (about $1,000) from these accounts through a voluntary process.

The foreign company that owns the Type-C account can then choose to get the foreign share that the Russian investor used to own abroad.

But it is uncertain if foreign clearing houses Euroclear or Clearstream, which manage the share transfers, will agree.

Many Western companies have left Russia or disposed of their assets there to dodge sanctions.

The Kremlin has hindered foreign companies from profiting on their sales, and in some instances has taken over companies completely.

In July, Russia took the Russian branches of French yogurt maker Danone and beer company Carlsberg, after doing the same to Germany’s Uniper and Finland’s Fortum months earlier.