Belgium has placed itself at the centre of the debate over how to use frozen Russian assets for Ukraine.
Through Brussels-based securities depository Euroclear, the country hosts around €180 billion of immobilised Russian funds, mostly belonging to the Russian state. These assets generate substantial interest income, which in turn produces exceptional profits – and exceptional tax receipts – for Belgium. The question is how much of that windfall ultimately reaches Kyiv.
Euroclear’s role is technical but crucial. Because Russian securities and cash are frozen, coupons and maturities continue to flow into blocked accounts. Euroclear reinvests these balances and records the resulting interest income as its own. In 2024, that interest related to Russian assets reached €6.9 billion. On this, Belgium levied around €1.7 billion in corporate tax, reflecting a 25 per cent rate on the profits linked to the frozen portfolio.
Part of the money never passes through the Belgian budget at all. Under EU rules agreed in 2024, the “net windfall profits” from immobilised Russian sovereign assets are being channelled into a common European mechanism for Ukraine’s defence and reconstruction. Through this structure, Euroclear contributed roughly €3.55 billion for the 2024 financial year to what Belgian officials describe as a European Fund for Ukraine, with an initial €1.55 billion transferred in mid-2024 and a second tranche of about €2 billion scheduled for early 2025.
The controversy concerns a different stream: the Belgian tax take on Euroclear’s profits. In 2023 the government announced that an additional €625 million in “extra tax revenue” from frozen Russian assets would be used exclusively to finance aid to Ukraine, despite domestic budget pressures. Then-prime minister Alexander De Croo described this as a strict rule: the new income would only be applied to Ukraine-related spending.
By 2024 that pledge had grown in scale. Euroclear’s 2024 results confirmed that interest earnings linked to Russian assets generated €1.7 billion in Belgian corporate tax for the year. Belgian officials have repeatedly stated that these receipts will also be used to support Ukraine. According to figures cited in EU reporting, Belgium’s total declared contribution to Ukraine – including military, financial and humanitarian support – reached about €3.44 billion between the start of the full-scale invasion and August 2025.
Several EU partners, however, have begun to question whether the link between Euroclear-related tax income and payments to Ukraine is as direct as Brussels suggests. Diplomats quoted in coverage of a recent Politico report argue that Belgium has not fully disclosed how the windfall tax is handled inside the federal budget. They claim that a mechanism promised in 2024 to channel all such tax income automatically into an EU and G7 financial instrument for Ukraine has not been implemented, and suggest that part of the revenue may have been used to cover ordinary Belgian expenditure.
Belgian authorities reject the allegation. Officials insist that all tax income derived from frozen Russian assets “is being transferred to Ukraine” and point to a separate figure of roughly €1 billion in direct support from the national budget since 2022. At the same time, they have not provided a detailed, line-by-line public breakdown showing how each year’s additional Euroclear-related tax receipts are matched by outgoing payments to Ukraine or to Ukraine-dedicated EU instruments.
The gap between declarations and documentation has fuelled doubts in other capitals. Some EU diplomats argue that, given the political sensitivity of using Russian assets and the scale of the sums involved, Belgium should publish a transparent mechanism showing how Euroclear tax receipts are ring-fenced and disbursed. Others note that the overall Belgian contribution figure exceeds the known windfall tax revenues, which suggests that the country is not relying solely on Euroclear proceeds – but does not answer whether every Euroclear-linked euro is in fact earmarked for Ukraine, as promised.
What can be stated with reasonable certainty is that large flows are already going to Ukraine from two channels: the EU’s common scheme using net windfall profits, and Belgian national aid, to which Euroclear-related tax revenue presumably contributes. What cannot yet be independently verified is whether all of the “extra Euroclear taxes” are dedicated, in full and in real time, to Ukraine. Until Belgium makes the internal budgetary mechanics fully transparent, the claim remains a matter of political assurance rather than audited fact.
For context, Euroclear’s first year of revenues from frozen Russian assets dates back to 2022, when interest generated on the blocked cash balances reached €821 million. This amount was recorded as income but not distributed to shareholders; Euroclear’s board decided to retain all sanction-related profits on its balance sheet in view of the legal and political uncertainties. The Belgian state nonetheless collected corporate tax on these earnings, with press and official estimates putting the additional revenue at around €625 million for that year. At that stage there was still no common EU mechanism to direct such proceeds to Ukraine, and Belgium only began pledging and transferring portions of this windfall to Ukraine from 2023 onwards.
Confiscation of Russian Assets: How Belgium Aims to Keep €5 Billion Earned from the War in Ukraine
