Britain Hands Over $10 Billion In Frozen Russian Assets To Ukraine
- 5.12.2025, 11:30
The tentative arrangement provides for two purposes.
The British government is ready to hand over £8 billion ($10.6 billion) in frozen Russian assets to Ukraine, sources in the country's cabinet told The Times.
The plans to use London's blocked Russian assets were discussed at a meeting of NATO foreign ministers in Brussels on December 3, they said.
A tentative agreement is that the funds could go both to finance the Ukrainian army and the rebellion According to the latest report from the UK Finance Ministry's Office for the Implementation of Financial Sanctions (OFSI), the UK authorities have frozen £28.7 billion worth of Russian assets.
Before that, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced two options for providing financial aid to Ukraine. The first assumes a loan with the involvement of market capital and the EU budget as a guarantee of repayment, and the second - the issuance of a "reparation loan" at the expense of frozen assets of the Bank of Russia. At the same time, the allocation of such a loan would not require the consent of all EU members and could be approved by a "qualified majority of votes." One of these options should be adopted in December by the EU Council.
In total, the European Commission has proposed to provide Kiev with 210 billion euros, which will be needed for the next two years. Of this amount, 140 billion can be withdrawn from the Bank of Russia's account in the Belgian depository Euroclear, while the rest can be withdrawn from accounts in other European countries. At the same time, 115 billion euros are expected to be used to finance Ukraine's defense industry, and of the remaining 95 billion euros, Kiev will repay 45 billion euros that the G7 countries had previously issued against the security of future revenues from Russian assets. Another 50 billion euros may be used for budgetary needs.
Belgium and Euroclear opposed the European Commission's plan, considering it legally and financially risky. In particular, Belgian Prime Minister Bart de Wever called it "fundamentally flawed" because if the assets are unfrozen one day and Moscow demands them back, Euroclear will not be able to pay the funds immediately. He also recalled that Russia could seize tens of billions of euros worth of European assets.
The European Central Bank has refused to be a lender of last resort on guarantees from EU governments to quickly make the seized money available for repayment if needed. That would violate the charter of the bank, which is not authorized to finance governments, the ECB said.