Belgium does not want to transfer frozen assets of the Russian Federation to support Ukraine

Belgian Defense Minister Theo Francken said that the country strongly opposes the transfer of frozen Russian assets to Ukraine.

Euractiv writes about this.

"This issue is not up for discussion, the door is closed," the Defense Minister said.

What preceded

The European diplomatʼs statement was preceded by a visit by Belgian Foreign Minister Maxime Prevost to Kyiv on August 18. At a joint press conference, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiha called on European partners to discuss again how to transfer frozen Russian resources to Ukraine.

Sybiha emphasized that this is fair, since the World Bank estimates the damage Russia has caused to Ukrainian infrastructure at over $600 billion. He emphasized that Kyiv needs such support for macro-financial stability.

His Belgian counterpart Maxime Prevost replied that Brussels was ready to reconsider its position, but immediately clarified that the risks that the Belgian side had warned about earlier had not disappeared.

He said that the main condition remains unchanged — the legal, financial and systemic risks of such a decision should be shared among all EU countries, and not Belgium itself. Last year, the expected solidarity from other capitals, according to Prevost, did not happen.

Sweden, the Netherlands, Spain and Poland also want the European Commission to resume work on a plan to use frozen Russian assets to support Ukraine. At the same time, a European diplomat told a Babel correspondent that EU countries are not currently ready to discuss again the transfer of frozen Russian assets to Ukraine.

• The frozen assets of the Central Bank of Russia in the European Union are estimated at over €200 billion. More than half of them are stored in the Belgian financial institution Euroclear. EU countries use the proceeds from the frozen assets of the Russian Federation to finance aid to Ukraine. The first payment was made in the spring of 2026.

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