Nearly three years after the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Belgium holds €258 billion in frozen or immobilised Russian assets.
The General Administration of Treasury at the Ministry of Finance confirmed the figures on Wednesday to La Libre and De Tijd.
Some of these assets belong to institutions not sanctioned by the European Union. Frozen assets amount to €65 billion, with an additional €193 billion in immobilised transactions, primarily from the Central Bank of Russia.
Belgium leads the EU in the total amount of immobilised Russian assets. This is largely due to the presence of Euroclear, an international transaction specialist headquartered in Brussels.
The assets, including financial products, securities, or bonds, belong to individuals or institutions sanctioned by the EU since the start of the war in Ukraine.
However, according to De Tijd, a significant portion of these frozen amounts originate from Western banks or entities not sanctioned by the EU.
This blockage is attributed to transactions involving the Russian central bank.
The Ministry of Finance is handling numerous procedures to release these assets but faces significant backlog due to complex verification processes.
