A Moscow arbitration court has ordered the Brussels-based clearing house Euroclear to pay the Russian Central Bank 18.2 trillion rubles — equivalent to roughly €249.7 billion — in compensation, handing the bank a sweeping legal victory over assets frozen by the European Union after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
The court, which heard the case behind closed doors, upheld the bank’s claim in full, according to Euroclear’s lawyers Maxim Kulkov and Sergei Savelyev. The legal team, quoted Friday by Russian business outlet RBC, said the proceedings violated Euroclear’s right to a fair trial. Savelyev said the clearing house intends to appeal. A representative for the Central Bank told RBC the bank is satisfied with the court’s decision.
The ruling marks a sharp escalation in the four-year legal and financial battle over Russian state assets immobilized by Western sanctions. The EU froze approximately €210 billion in Russian central bank reserves as part of its sanctions regime after Moscow sent troops into Ukraine. Euroclear, the Brussels-based financial services company that settles and holds cross-border securities, holds the bulk of those assets — roughly €193 billion.
The Russian Central Bank filed the lawsuit in December 2025, arguing that it had incurred massive damages because it was prevented from managing or disposing of its own funds and securities held at Euroclear. The Moscow Arbitration Court agreed, awarding the bank the full sum it sought.
The ruling lands at a sensitive moment in the sanctions architecture. The EU had initially planned to tap the frozen Russian assets directly — using either the principal or the interest they generate — to finance military and economic assistance to Ukraine. But that effort stalled after Belgium, where Euroclear is domiciled, sought formal assurances that it would not be exposed to Russian legal retaliation if the assets were seized. When those assurances could not be secured, the EU pivoted to a €90 billion capital-markets borrowing plan, which it structured as an interest-free loan to Ukraine to cover two years of needs.
The Central Bank has consistently condemned any effort to direct its frozen reserves toward Ukraine. In the AP report, the bank described the use of the assets as “illegal, contrary to international law,” arguing that such actions violate “the principles of sovereign immunity of assets.”
The Moscow court’s closed-door proceedings raise questions about whether the ruling can be enforced outside Russia, where Euroclear’s core operations and assets are located. The clearing house has characterized the trial as fundamentally unfair and intends to appeal — a process likely to extend for months and which will test whether Russian court judgments against EU-based financial infrastructure gain traction in European legal systems.
For the EU, the ruling underscores the risk that member-state sanctions enforcement can generate asymmetric legal exposure: Euroclear, as the primary custodian of frozen Russian reserves, is now the target of a judgment more than double the value of the assets it actually holds.
The Russian court’s decision does not alter the immediate status of the frozen funds, which remain immobilized under EU sanctions. But it weaponizes the very legal architecture — asset freezes, sovereign claims, and cross-border financial disputes — that the sanctions regime was built upon, and it gives Moscow a judicial finding it is certain to cite in every future negotiation over the reserves.