Belgium became Russian asset

From the Politico:

"How Belgium became Russia's most valuable asset

By TIM ROSS, GREGORIO SORGI, HANS VON DER BURCHARD and NICHOLAS VINOCUR 

December 4, 2025 

It became clear that something had gone wrong by the time the langoustines were served for lunch. 

The European Union’s leaders arrived on Oct. 23 for a summit in rain-soaked Brussels to welcome Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy with a gift he sorely needed: a huge loan of some €140 billion backed by Russian assets frozen in a Belgian bank. It would be enough to keep his besieged country in the fight against Russia’s invading forces for at least the next two years. 

The assorted prime ministers and presidents were so convinced by their plan for the loan that they were already arguing among themselves over how the money should be spent. France wanted Ukraine to buy weapons made in Europe. Finland, among others, argued that Zelenskyy should be free to procure whatever kit he needed from wherever he could find it. 

ut when the discussion broke up for lunch without agreement on raiding the Russian cash, reality dawned: Modest Belgium, a country of 12 million people, was not going to allow the so-called reparations loan to happen at all. 

The fatal blow came from Bart De Wever. The bespectacled 54-year-old Belgian prime minister cuts an eccentric figure at the EU summit table, with his penchant for round-collared shirts, Roman history and witty one-liners. This time he was deadly serious, and dug in. 

He told his peers that the risk of retaliation by the Russians for expropriating their sovereign assets was too great to contemplate. In the event that Moscow won a legal challenge against Belgium or Euroclear, the Brussels depository holding the assets, they would be on the hook to repay the entire amount, on their own. “That’s completely insane,” he said. 

As afternoon stretched into evening, and dinner came and went, De Wever demanded the summit’s final conclusions be rewritten, repeatedly, to remove any mention of using Moscow’s assets to send cash to Kyiv. 

The Belgian blockade knocked the wind out of Ukraine’s European alliance at a critical moment. If the leaders had agreed to move ahead at speed with the loan plan at the October summit, it would have sent a powerful signal to Vladimir Putin about Ukraine’s long-term strength and Europe’s robust commitment to defend itself.

Instead, Zelenskyy and Europe were weakened by the divisions when Donald Trump, still hoping for a Nobel Peace Prize, reopened his push for peace talks with Putin allies...

“The Russians must be having the best time,” said one EU official close to negotiations...

So far the signs are not good. “I’m not impressed yet, let me put it that way,” De Wever said in televised remarks as the Commission released its draft legal texts on Wednesday. “We are not going to put risks involving hundreds of billions … on Belgian shoulders. Not today, not tomorrow, never.”...

In a letter to von der Leyen on Nov. 27, De Wever underlined his opposition, describing the reparations loan proposal as “fundamentally wrong.” 

“I am fully cognizant of the need to find ways to continue financial support to Ukraine,” De Wever wrote in his letter to von der Leyen. “My point has always been that there are alternative ways to put our money where our mouth is. When we talk about having skin in the game, we have to accept that it will be our skin in the game.” 

“Who would advise the prime minister to write such a letter?” one exasperated diplomat said, dismayed at De Wever’s apparent insensitivity. “He talks about having ‘skin in the game.’ What about Ukraine?”...

For the EU, one essential question remains — and it’s one that is always there, in every crisis that crosses the desks of the diplomats and officials working in Brussels: Can a union of 27 diverse, fractious, complex countries, each with its own domestic struggles, political rivalries and ambitious leaders, unite to meet the moment when it truly matters? 

In the words of one diplomat, “It’s anyone’s guess.”"

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Another perspective on the topic gave Ukrainian economist Oleh Pendzin in the UNIAN on Nov 28, 2025: 

"Our European friends live between two great emotions: fear and greed. Depending on which emotion predominates, they make one or another decision... The European Union isn't ready to give [the Russian] money to Ukraine yet, but it certainly won't give it to the US. This won't happen because no European politician will agree to it... I think these are simply Trump's rosy dreams that will never come true. Europe will not give this money to either the US or Russia under any circumstances. Europe will do everything to hold on to these assets for as long as possible. Belgians live off this money, it's a huge amount. Who would give it away?"