The Central Bank of Russia said on May 25 that it had filed a second lawsuit with the EU's Court of First Instance to protest the EU's regulations allowing the use of Russian frozen assets to repay the loan that the EU provided to Ukraine.
The EU legal framework that the Central Bank of Russia is suing has viewed Russia's sovereign assets as part of financial support for a third country, thereby changing the legal and economic regimes that apply to sovereign assets" - the Central Bank of Russia emphasized.
According to EU regulations issued on February 24, 2026, the EU loan to Ukraine will only be repaid when Ukraine receives compensation from Russia related to the conflict that broke out in 2022. Meanwhile, the EU still retains the right to use Russia's frozen assets to pay Ukraine's debt.
The Central Bank of Russia estimates that about 300 billion USD of assets belonging to Russia's sovereignty fund have been frozen by Western countries. Most of these assets are frozen in Europe and are deposited at the Euroclear depository of Belgium.
In March this year, the Central Bank of Russia sued the decision issued in December 2025 on the indefinite extension of Russia's asset freeze in Europe, arguing that this measure was applied to serious procedural violations. This lawsuit was also sent to the EU Court of First Instance.
Regarding Russian assets frozen by the West, on May 15, a court in Moscow accepted the request of the Central Bank of Russia to claim compensation for damages from Euroclear related to the freezing of assets worth 18.17 trillion Russian rubles (equivalent to about 253.77 billion USD).
