Russia’s central bank on Friday filed a lawsuit in Moscow against Brussels-based Euroclear, which houses most of the frozen Russian assets that the EU wants to use to finance aid to Ukraine.
The court filing comes just days before a high-stakes European Council summit, where EU leaders are expected to press Belgium to unlock billions of euros in Russian assets to underpin a major loan package for Kyiv.
“Due to the unlawful actions of the Euroclear depository that are causing losses to the Bank of Russia, and in light of mechanisms officially under consideration by the European Commission for the direct or indirect use of the Bank of Russia’s assets without its consent, the Bank of Russia is filing a claim in the Moscow Arbitration Court against the Euroclear depository to recover the losses incurred,” the central bank said in a statement.
Belgium has opposed the use of sovereign Russian assets over concerns that the country may eventually be required to pay the money back to Moscow on its own. Some €185 billion in frozen Russian assets are under the stewardship of Euroclear, the Brussels-based financial depository, while another €25 billion is scattered across the EU in private bank accounts.
With the future of the prospective loan still hanging in the air, EU ambassadors on Thursday handed emergency powers to the European Commission to keep Russian state assets permanently frozen. Such a solution would mean the assets remain blocked until the Kremlin pays post-war reparations to Ukraine, significantly reducing the possibility that pro-Russian countries like Hungary or Slovakia would hand back the frozen funds to Russia.
While Russian courts have little power to force the handover of Euroclear’s euro or dollar assets held in Belgium, they do have the power to take retaliatory action against Euroclear balances held in Russian financial institutions.
However, in 2024 the European Commission introduced a legal mechanism to compensate Euroclear for losses incurred in Russia due to its compliance with Western sanctions — effectively neutralizing the economic effects of Russia’s retaliation.
Euroclear declined to comment.