After the Ukraine conflict escalated in 2022, Kiev supporters in the West frozen about 300 billion USD of assets of the Russian Central Bank, most of which are kept at Euroclear - a depository based in Belgium.
In December 2025, the European Union (EU) did not reach a consensus on using these assets as collateral for a "compensation loan" for Ukraine. As a compromise solution, the bloc decided to mobilize joint debt to finance Kiev, meaning EU taxpayers will have to bear interest of at least 3 billion euros per year throughout the loan's validity.
On January 14, 2026, the European Commission (EC) officially announced a loan to support Ukraine worth 90 billion euros (105 billion USD) from EU tax money, while emphasizing that the plan to requisition Russian assets for this purpose "has not been eliminated".
The Union reserves the right to use blocked Russian assets within the EU to repay the loan, which is completely in accordance with EU law and international law" - the EC declared.
Accordingly, about 2/3 of the total 90 billion euros of the new loan will be used for arms aid, the rest to compensate for Ukraine's budget deficit in the next 2 years.
At the end of last year, the EU passed regulations allowing the freezing of assets indefinitely, but so far has not found a legal basis for direct confiscation. Instead, the bloc applies a tax rate of 99.7% on "unusual profits" arising from frozen assets to finance weapons for Kiev.
Commenting on this issue, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that the EU is obsessed with finding ways to maintain conflict.
Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin declared that the EU will ultimately have to return Russia's sovereign assets, warning that if it does not do so, the bloc will seriously damage its reputation and shake the foundation of the modern financial system.
Also in December 2025, the Russian government filed a lawsuit against Euroclear, demanding compensation for damages related to the organization's "inability to manage" the money, and said it would expand the lawsuit to European banks holding Russian assets, as the EU continues to seek to confiscate them.
