West’s capitulation on Kremlin’s war chest is shameful
In the dead of night last Thursday, as European Union leaders huddled in Brussels, a critical decision emerged from the fog of negotiations. The EU agreed to extend a €90 billion (£79 billion) interest-free loan to Ukraine, intended to safeguard the country’s defences and basic functioning for the next two years.
It was a vital lifeline but it came with a grave failure: the outright rejection of a far bolder and more just plan to confiscate Russia’s frozen central bank assets and put them to work for Ukraine.
I have spent years campaigning for the confiscation of these assets, so the outcome leaves me torn between relief and frustration. Relief, because Ukraine has been spared immediate financial and military collapse. Frustration, because the EU once again flinched at the moment when it could have forced the aggressor to pay for his own war.
The assets in question amount to roughly €210 billion in Russian central bank reserves, immobilised inside the EU just weeks after Vladimir Putin launched his full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. They represent a vast war chest belonging to a regime committing mass murder, war crimes and territorial theft in plain sight.
Yet they remain untouched, sitting inert in the West’s financial institutions while Ukrainian cities are reduced to rubble.
As the architect of the Magnitsky Act, the world’s most effective tool for sanctioning human rights abusers and kleptocrats, I have long believed that asset confiscation is not only lawful but morally necessary. Sergei Magnitsky, my lawyer, was tortured and killed in a Moscow prison in 2009 after exposing a tax fraud carried out by Russian officials.
His murder showed the world how authoritarian regimes function: they steal, they brutalise — and they hide their money abroad.
If Putin is willing to slaughter hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians and level their cities, why should his money be safe in Europe?
The Brussels summit took place against a backdrop of mounting danger for both Ukraine and Europe. Since returning to office, President Trump has followed through on his campaign promise to slash support for Ukraine. In February, he ordered a pause on all US military assistance. Up to that point, the United States had provided roughly 40 per cent of Ukraine’s military support. Its sudden withdrawal pushed Kyiv to the edge of disaster.
Without fresh funding, Ukraine would have run out of money by next spring.
Drone production would have halted.
Artillery would go quiet. Soldiers would have gone unpaid. And the front lines would have buckled, opening the door to a Russian breakthrough and, potentially, a complete collapse.
The consequences of such a rout would be catastrophic. Millions of refugees would flee into Europe and the UK. Putin’s forces would seize vast quantities of Nato-supplied weaponry, replenishing his depleted stockpiles with our arms. Emboldened by victory, Poland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania would be next.
The EU’s €90 billion loan prevents that nightmare, at least for now. But it does so by shifting the burden from the aggressor to European taxpayers. It is a stopgap, not a solution, and it signals weakness where strength is required.
There was, at least, one modest breakthrough. Days before the summit, the EU invoked an emergency legal mechanism to freeze Russia’s assets indefinitely, rather than renewing the sanctions every six months. Until now, a single member state could veto each renewal. With Hungary’s Viktor Orban repeatedly threatening to do so, the risk of the assets being unfrozen was real. It was a necessary step, but not enough.
Russia might not count its dead but it surely counts its money
Most dispiriting is why confiscation was rejected. A small group of countries, led by leaders openly sympathetic to Moscow, blocked the plan. Hungary and Slovakia played their expected roles.
More shocking was the opposition from the Czech Republic, which has its own painful history of Russian domination. Belgium, which holds most of the assets through its Euroclear depository, ultimately refused to move forward after its prime minister reportedly was personally threatened by the Kremlin.
This capitulation is shameful.
Hungary, Slovakia and the Czechs are all net beneficiaries of EU funds. Yet they have forced the rest of Europe’s 450 million citizens to shoulder the cost of supporting Ukraine, while Putin’s money remains untouched.
The Kremlin is openly mocking Europe’s timidity. Financial pressure can succeed where diplomacy fails. Russia may not count its dead but surely counts its money. Seizing assets would strike at the heart of Putin’s system and hasten an end to the war.
Countries that obstruct justice should face reductions in their EU funding to offset the cost of the loan. And the UK, unconstrained by such infighting, should set an example. Instead of copying the EU and standing down, a move announced on Friday, the UK should confiscate the billions in Russian assets frozen in London and transfer them to Ukraine.
After two decades confronting the Kremlin, I have learnt one lesson above all others: evil advances when good people hesitate. Putin invaded Ukraine expecting a divided and fearful West. We must prove him wrong. Confiscating his billions is not theft. It is restitution. It is justice. And it is long overdue.
Sir William Browder is the author of Red Notice and Freezing Order, and head of the Global Magnitsky Justice Campaign
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