Explainer: Why Russia's frozen assets are Europe's hot topic once again.

Explainer: Why Russia's frozen assets are Europe's hot topic once again. BRUSSELS, Belgium — Months after the idea was thought to have been laid to rest, some EU capitals are reviving the push to use 200 billion euros ($233 billion) in Russian assets, frozen in the bloc since 2022, to support Ukraine. The bloc's 27 countries are straining under the financial burden of bankrolling Ukraine, essentially on their own, while Kyiv is facing a massive budget hole amid Russia's unabating aggression. Meanwhile, the Russian threat has been forcing Europe to divert funds from other priorities to its own defenses. The 200 billion euros of Moscow's money sitting in European financial institutions could, some think, allow Europe to have its cake and eat it too. Using the frozen assets is not straightforward. It carries both legal and political risks and could strain an otherwise warm relationship between the two Brussels-based governments: the European Union and Belgium. But whether one looks to Brussels, Kyiv, Stockholm, or Madrid, there are signs that Europe could agree on a workable solution this time. read also What are these Russian frozen assets? When Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the EU, the G7, and allied countries agreed to immobilize financial reserves owned by the Russian Central Bank but hosted in financial institutions based in their respective countries. By far the largest share of these assets, some 180 billion euros ($210 billion), is in the Belgium-based clearing house Euroclear. Other significant holders of assets are Japan, the U.K., France, Canada, Luxembourg, Switzerland, and the U.S., in that order. Since then, Russia has bombarded the Belgian legal system with cases in an attempt to unfreeze the assets. All attempts have failed. The frozen assets have already been used to provide several forms of financial assistance to Ukraine. The G7 approved the Extraordinary Revenue Acceleration (ERA) loan of 45 billion euros ($52 billion) in October 2024, to be repaid from windfall profits generated by Russia's assets frozen in Euroclear. Then, in April 2026, EU countries finalized a 90-billion-euro ($105-billion) loan to Ukraine, with the deal leaving the door open to using frozen Russian assets to repay it. Russian assets have even been floated as a potential option for the Strasbourg-based Council of Europe's efforts to establish mechanisms to compensate Ukraine for war damage. The total cost of Ukraine's recovery and reconstruction stood at $588 billion according to a February 2026 World Bank report, well over double the total value of the assets frozen in the EU. But none of these injections of financial aid for Ukraine formally tie the 200 billion euros to them, meaning that the loans could be repaid by other means, at some future date. read also What is being proposed now? And what isn't? Sweden, the Netherlands, Poland, and Spain issued a joint call on Aug. 27 for the EU to "revert to the issue of how we can make further use of Russia's immobilized assets for the benefit of Ukraine." "By using the immobilized assets, the EU can ensure that Russia pays for the destruction it has caused in Ukraine without delay, while at the same time reducing the burden on our own taxpayers," reads the letter. The verb "use" is repeated throughout the paper, leaving the legal mechanism for converting Russian assets into support for Ukraine suitably vague and tasking the European Commission with identifying a workable solution. They have done so because a direct "expropriation" of the 200 billion euros could result in a legal challenge from Russia or lead Moscow to carry out seizures of its own. Russia has already been expropriating assets from European companies still active in the country, in violation of a web of investment treaties intended to prevent such actions. Instead, the discussion is likely to revolve around the European Commission's proposal from late 2025 to force Euroclear to provide an interest-free loan to the bloc, using the assets as collateral. read also What went wrong last time? European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen first proposed to "work urgently on a new solution to finance Ukraine's war effort on the basis of the immobilized Russian assets," in her September 2025 State of the EU speech. However, the European Commission was not ready for strong objections from Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever. De Wever was not supportive of the idea because he feared that any measure resembling an expropriation of Russian assets could spook investors and that, without guarantees, Belgium could be a prime target for retribution from Moscow. Throughout the fall, Belgium's airspace was being repeatedly disrupted by drones, with suspected Russian involvement. And the European Central Bank shared De Wever's concerns about investors and the stability of the eurozone as a whole. Despite the fears, De Wever said the idea could advance if the EU shielded Euroclear from legal and liquidity risks, shared the burden of potential lawsuits, and secured similar commitments from other countries holding Russian assets. Ahead of the December summit of EU leaders, there was an exchange of amendments to try to broker a compromise, but it was too little, too late. The bloc then resorted to what the EU's top diplomat, Kaja Kallas, called 'Plan B': a common EU loan of 90 billion euros, finalized in April 2026. Why could it happen this time? With the conversation on Russian assets back on the agenda, the issues and objections are already known. And there are reasons to believe the European Commission has continued working on its proposals. In April, the EU's Economy Commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis said the bloc would have to revisit the issue at some point. And on Sept. 7, European Commission spokesperson Balazs Ujvari told journalists that "the issue has never been taken off the agenda." Ujvari reminded that EU countries agreed in December that the technical and legal details should continue to be reviewed. There are also signs that Belgium is willing to talk, provided its conditions are met. Likewise, the two main countries that share Belgium's concerns and also hold Russian frozen assets seem open to the discussion. At the Sept. 2 meeting of EU foreign ministers, Luxembourg's Xavier Bettel said he remained "constructive and open to all pragmatic solutions," provided there is a "solidarity mechanism." And while the French government has remained publicly silent on the issue, presidential candidate and France's former prime minister, Gabriel Attal, who hails from the same party as incumbent President Emmanuel Macron, has expressed support for the use of Russian assets. "Today, we have 240 billion euros ($280 billion) of frozen Russian assets in European bank accounts. I am fighting, and I will fight to provide financial help to Ukraine thanks to these funds," Attal said in a Sept. 6 interview. Financial difficulties facing Ukraine suggest that additional European support will be needed. President Volodymyr Zelensky identified a $27 billion hole in Ukraine's finances by the end of 2026 and has already called to front-load some of the 90 billion euro loan to be paid this year instead of in 2027. The EU loan was calculated to cover two-thirds of Ukraine's total financial and military needs, but other allies, with the exception of Norway, have failed to increase their contributions significantly. read also The discussions also re-emerge as the EU is negotiating its multi-year budget for 2028-2034. Leaders hope to reach a compromise by the end of 2026 before the continent is plunged into a string of elections in several large member states. It could be that an agreement on frozen assets would be in some way linked to the final compromise on the budget. For example, the budget could serve as a guarantee of EU creditworthiness in a final agreement, or a pot of money could be created to pay for legal challenges from Russia to the maneuver. It could even affect the amount of direct support for Ukraine foreseen in the next budget, which currently stands at 89 billion euros ($103 billion) – or prompt a rethink of the EU's "own" taxes to ensure future liquidity for loans to Ukraine, which are unlikely to be repaid anytime soon. Note from the author: Hi, this is Chris Powers. Thanks for reading this article. The EU is a famously complicated beast to understand, but for Ukraine, it has also never been so important. Whether it's Russia sanctions, fighting corruption, keeping Ukraine's finances in the black, or the process of joining the EU itself, many Kyivan roads eventually pass through Brussels. 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