MOSCOW, April 27 (Reuters) - Russia may respond to any

U.S. confiscation of its currency reserves frozen in the West by

seizing the assets, including property and cash, of U.S.

citizens and investors in Russia, Dmitry Medvedev, a senior

security official, said on Saturday.

    The U.S. House of Representatives has passed a bill allowing

the Biden administration to confiscate Russian assets held in

American banks and transfer them to Ukraine, something the

Kremlin has said would be illegal and trigger retaliation.

    In response to Russia's war in Ukraine, the United States

and its allies prohibited transactions with Russia's central

bank and finance ministry and blocked about $300 billion of

sovereign Russian assets in the West, most of which are in

European not American financial institutions.

    The Group of Seven (G7) major democracies is also looking at

what it may be able to do around the frozen Russian assets.  

    Medvedev, a close ally of President Vladimir Putin and the

deputy chairman of Russia's Security Council, said on Saturday

that Russia would not be able to retaliate in kind against any

U.S. seizure of its reserves.

    "The reason is clear - we do not have a significant amount

of American state property, including money, rights and other US

assets. Therefore, the answer can only be asymmetrical. It is

not a fact that it will be any less painful," Medvedev wrote on

his official Telegram channel.

    "We are talking about the foreclosure, for example by a

court decision, on the property of private individuals located

in the jurisdiction of Russia (money, real estate and movable

property in kind, property rights)."

    "Yes, this is a complex story, since these individuals

usually acted as investors in the Russian economy," Medvedev

said. "And we guaranteed them the inviolability of their private

property rights. But the unexpected happened - their state

declared a hybrid war on us. This must be answered."

    He said the law in Russia would need to be changed to allow

such asset seizures in favour of the Russian state.

    Russian Central Bank governor Elvira Nabiullina said on

Friday Moscow would defend its legitimate interests in the event

that its assets were confiscated, but did not disclose the

strategy and tactics.

(Reporting by Elena Fabrichnaya, Writing by Maxim Rodionov,

Editing by Andrew Osborn and Timothy Heritage)