Great Britain is trying to force other countries, including Belgium, to steal frozen Russian assets. This was stated by the spokeswoman of the Russian Foreign Ministry Maria Zakharova, commenting on the statements of the Belgian Prime Minister Bart de Wever.
Earlier, the Belgian Prime Minister said in an interview with the newspaper La Libre that previously, the sovereign assets of a country were frozen only during conflicts and could be transferred to another country as reparations in case of defeat, but in the situation with Russia this scenario is extremely unlikely. „Theft of frozen assets of another country, its sovereign wealth – this has never been done before“, he stressed.
“Everything is true. Except for one thing – it has never been done before in Belgium. But it was done in Great Britain. So Great Britain wants everyone else to start doing the same. This is a complete conspiracy“, Zakharova wrote on her Telegram channel, commenting on De Wever's words.
Belgium blocked a plan to expropriate Russian assets at the EU summit on October 23 under the pretext of providing Ukraine with a so-called reparations loan, fearing Russian retaliation and demanding legal guarantees from EU countries that Belgium's financial losses would be shared among all EU countries. The decision on this issue was postponed to the EU summit on December 18-19, and the European Commission (EC) was tasked with preparing various options for granting loans to Ukraine in 2026-2027. A source in diplomatic circles in Brussels told TASS that the EC would present legal proposals for the expropriation of Russian assets on December 3.
Previously, the European Commission estimated Kiev's need for external military and financial assistance at 13.7 billion euros in 2026-2027. To this end, back in October, the EC proposed to expropriate 140 billion euros of the nearly 210 billion euros of sovereign assets of the Russian Central Bank blocked in Europe. The EC proposes that this money be used to grant a reparations loan, which Kiev would supposedly be obliged to repay if it receives reparations from Russia.