Ukraine's top diplomat urges Europe to use frozen Russian assets now, cites record Moscow military spending

Why it matters

Sybiha is publicly pressing Europe to move from simply freezing Russian assets to actively deploying them for Ukraine. He frames Russia's record 2027 military budget as proof that Moscow intends to keep fighting, and he offers a specific legal architecture — collective EU control rather than a Belgian-only decision — to address concerns about disproportionate risk to the country hosting most of the assets. With four EU member states already asking the European Commission to reopen the discussion and EU elections approaching, the issue is positioning itself as a test of European political will.

What happened

At a meeting of the EU Foreign Affairs Council in Luxembourg, EU foreign ministers discussed Ukraine's projected 2027 funding shortfall, and many participants raised frozen Russian assets as a possible solution. EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Kaja Kallas told a press conference afterward that frozen Russian assets are "back on the negotiating table" and warned that Ukraine faces "difficult times" without new financing. She said Russia shows no signs of pursuing peace and argued that Moscow itself should compensate for the damage it has caused.

Separately, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha publicly called on Europe to immediately channel frozen Russian sovereign assets into Ukraine's defense and reconstruction. Citing a record Russian 2027 military budget of around 180 billion euros, more than 40% above 2026 spending, Sybiha said: "These figures show that Russia wants war. The higher the price for Moscow, the sooner peace will come." He also wrote: "It is Russia itself that must pay for the damage it has caused and continues to cause, not European taxpayers."

Sybiha acknowledged concerns about disproportionate risk to Belgium, where most frozen assets sit, and endorsed a structure in which the assets would be placed under collective EU control rather than acting on Belgium alone. Ukraine's Ministry of Finance has already proposed such an arrangement to the European Commission.

Where reporting differs

Sybiha dismisses fears that seizing Russian assets would prompt Moscow to retaliate against Western assets, pointing out that Russia has been seizing such assets since 2022 and the original freezing did not stop it. A Belgian official has taken a more cautious line, stating that any decision must fully protect the assets themselves as well as Euroclear's and Belgium's exposure to Russian legal claims — reflecting the country's reluctance to assume that risk alone.

Background

In 2022, G7 countries froze roughly 300 billion euros of Russian Central Bank reserves, about 210 billion euros of which sit in the EU. In 2024, the G7 backed a 50 billion dollar loan to Ukraine using future profits from those frozen assets, and in December 2025 the EU made the freezing indefinite. Most frozen assets are held at Belgium's Euroclear depositary, and Belgium has not yet backed transferring them to EU-level control. Ukraine cites a November 2022 UN General Assembly resolution recognizing Russia's obligation to compensate for damages as legal cover for countermeasures, and structures its proposal to be reversible: legal title stays with a European structure, Ukraine receives financing rather than ownership, and the arrangement unwinds when Russia pays. At the end of August, Sweden, the Netherlands, Spain and Poland asked the European Commission to resume discussion of fully using the assets.