EU countries push to use frozen Russian assets to fund Ukraine, FT reports

EU countries, including Sweden, the Netherlands, Spain and Poland, are urging Brussels to revive efforts to use frozen Russian assets to finance Ukraine, amid concerns that Kyiv is once again facing a funding crisis, the Financial Times reports.

Plans to finance Ukraine with more than €200 billion in assets belonging to Russia’s central bank collapsed last winter after Belgium, where most of the assets are held, blocked the initiative.

However, according to four people familiar with the document, a letter from a coalition of the countries to the European Commission calls for the work to be resumed and for ways to be found to circumvent Belgium’s veto.

“Now is the time to start a new discussion about how we can use Russia’s frozen assets going forward for Ukraine and for our benefit,” Swedish Foreign Minister Maria Malmer Stenergard said.

“This is a fair and smart way to make sure that Ukraine can defend itself and all of Europe,” she added.

According to one FT source, the letter is “a call for the Commission to carry out the technical work” needed to use the assets and ease Kyiv’s budgetary needs.

Ukraine has long called on the EU to use Russian assets.

Profits generated from the accumulated assets at Euroclear, the Brussels-based central securities depository that holds most of the assets, are already being used to help finance a loan of up to €50 billion agreed in 2024.