Poland offers to help insure Belgium against lawsuits for using frozen Russian assets to support Ukraine

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Poland’s foreign minister, Radosław Sikorski, says his country is willing to help insure Belgium against the risk of lawsuits if it allows frozen Russian funds to be used to support Ukraine.

“Belgium has consistently declared its readiness to release these assets provided we demonstrate practical solidarity with it in the event of Russian lawsuits,” said Sikorski ahead of a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Copenhagen today to discuss further sanctions on Moscow.

“Poland is ready to participate in such insurance for Belgium, but not everyone is ready yet,” he added, quoted by the Polish Press Agency (PAP).

“It looks like the war in Ukraine will continue,” continued the foreign minister. “Putin is not honouring his commitments, even to the president of the United States, which means we need to find financing for the coming years, and this could be financing from European taxpayers or from the aggressor’s frozen funds.”

Last year, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk called on the West to use $300 billion of frozen Russian central bank assets to support Ukraine. Soon after, he, French President Emannuel Macron and then-German Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced plans to use Russian assets to purchase weapons for Ukraine.

Around €210 billion ($245 billion) of Russian sovereign assets were left stranded in Europe when Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The bulk of them are at Euroclear, a Belgium-based financial group, notes Reuters.

However, earlier this week, Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever warned that it is “not so easy legally” to seize those assets and that it could also result in “other countries withdrawing their state funds”

“This will have systemic consequences and is also very dangerous from a legal perspective,” said De Wever. “I believe we should keep these state funds immobilised.”

Speaking alongside him, new German Chancellor Friedrich Merz echoed those concerns, saying that Belgium “would be liable…if this money were to be accessed unlawfully”, reports the Kyiv Independent.

In his remarks today, Sikorski also confirmed that Poland is part of discussions on providing security guarantees for Ukraine in the event of a peace deal to end the war.

“We are an indispensable element, at least from a logistical perspective,” said Sikorski, referring to Poland’s status as the main hub for equipment and people moving in and out of Ukraine. “Polish territory and the logistics hub for Ukraine must be protected and defended on our territory.”

Speaking yesterday, Polish deputy defence miniseter Paweł Zalewski likewise told broadcaster RMF that “without what Poland offers, there will be no security guarantees”.

However, he reiterated previous assurances by the government that Polish troops would not be sent to Ukraine as part of any peacekeeping force.

Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.

Main image credit: Gabriel Piętka / MSZ (under CC BY-NC 4.0)

Daniel Tilles

Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.