Ukraine to receive €2 billion from frozen assets of the Russian Federation in spring – Euroclear
5 February 2025 14:36
In March, the international depository Euroclear plans to make the second payment of interest income from Russia’s frozen assets to the European Fund for Ukraine. This is reported in a press release by Euroclear, "Komersant Ukrainian" informs.
Euroclear, the European financial institution, continues to use the profits from the management of frozen assets of the Russian Federation to support Ukraine. In July, the company made the first payment of approximately EUR 1.55 billion to the European Fund for Ukraine.
This was made possible after retaining 10% of excess profits in accordance with capital and risk management requirements.
Second tranche in 2025
According to the official announcement, the next payment, scheduled for March 2025, will amount to about €2 billion.
These funds will come from the profits earned in the second half of 2024 and will be part of the European Union’s financial support for Ukraine.
Euroclear’s income from frozen assets
In 2024, Euroclear received €6.9 billion in interest income from managing frozen Russian assets.
In addition to transferring funds to Ukraine, the company will pay EUR 1.7 billion in taxes to the Belgian budget as part of its obligations to the state.
Accumulation of sanctioned assets
Due to international sanctions, coupon payments and repayments of liabilities of sanctioned entities continue to be accumulated in Euroclear accounts.
As of December 2024, the total amount of blocked funds in the bank reached €212 billion, of which €183 billion is attributable to Russian assets.
The role of the EU in the use of Russian funds
After Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, assets of Russian institutions worth about 260 billion euros were frozen. Much of these funds, including the reserves of the Central Bank of Russia, are managed by Euroclear.
This makes the European Union a key player in developing mechanisms to use these funds to support Ukraine.
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Russian money abroad
Following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, about €260 billion of the Central Bank of Russia’s assets have been frozen in securities and cash in the jurisdictions of the G7, the EU and Australia, with more than two-thirds of them frozen in the EU.
belgium controls €190 billion of assets in euros, the United States controls assets worth between $40 and $60 billion, and the United Kingdom controls about £25 billion.
Ukraine’s partners are discussing the idea of confiscating these funds in favor of Ukraine, but they are stopped by the fact that this would be a violation of the rights of depositors. Even the decision to transfer the proceeds of these assets to Ukraine was very difficult for them.
As for the funds of private individuals, the American think tank Atlantic Council claimed at the beginning of the full-scale war that Russians had about $1 trillion of “dark money” abroad. According to a 2020 report, a quarter of this amount is controlled by Putin and his oligarchs. This money is generally untouchable for the West, and there is no talk of any action against it.
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