Russia has exploited an EU sanctions loophole to unfreeze $3 billion worth of assets held by Belgium's Euroclear, according to a Flemish media report, and Austria's Raiffeisen Bank could be about to execute the same maneuver.
Belgian media outlet Apache reported on Oct. 15 that in April 2025, Euroclear compensated $3 billion from its holdings of Russian investors' assets, which were frozen in place by Western sanctions.
Russian leader Vladimir Putin has responded to EU sanctions being imposed against those helping him carry out his war in Ukraine by seizing European assets and sometimes using them to compensate individuals whose money held in Europe has been frozen by the EU's restrictions.
In 2024, Russia’s National Settlement Depository (NSD), the Russian counterpart to Euroclear, compensated several Russian investors in Europe by seizing $3 billion from the Russian bank accounts of European nationals, following an order from Putin, Apache reports.
Among the beneficiaries according to Apache, Putin-aligned politician Efim Malkin, as well as MTS Bank, PJSC Rosbank, and Leader Asset Management CJSC.
Euroclear told Apache that Belgium authorized them to "debit an equivalent amount of the sanctioned Russian accounts to compensate customers whose cash had been purchased in Russia," in line with EU regulation 269/2014.
That regulation is the legal underpinning for the EU's sanctions against those helping Russia wage its war on Ukraine, but its Article 5 allows EU countries to unfreeze assets in certain circumstances.
A template for Austria?
On Sept. 22, Austria's Raiffeisen Bank won a court case in Vienna that paves the way for a similar move, which essentially rewards the bank for continuing to do business in Russia for years after Moscow launched its full-scale invasion.
Russia expropriated 2.1 billion euros ($2.4 billion) of Raiffeisen's assets in January 2026, and then awarded it to a Russian investment company called Rasperia, which has ties to the sanctioned Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska.
With the Austrian court ruling, Rasperia has four weeks to appeal, at which point Raiffeisen can ask Austria to refund Raiffeisen using Rasperia's assets frozen in the EU.
Raiffeisen's corporate spokesperson Christof Danz previously told the Kyiv Independent that the bank's "priorities are supporting Ukraine and exiting Russia. Solving the current legal dispute rapidly facilitates attaining both objectives."
A European Commission spokesperson confirmed to the Kyiv Independent that "once the judgment of the Vienna court is final and enforceable, Raiffeisen may request authorization from the national competent authority to release the frozen assets."
The spokesperson mentioned that this is possible thanks to the same Article 5 that arose in the Belgian situation reported by Apache.
Raiffeisen's maneuver "will all but legitimize Deripaska’s attempts to trade his Austrian assets for Russian ones, signaling to oligarchs everywhere that there is a surefire route to avoiding European sanctions," said Max Hammer, human rights campaigner at the civil society organization Bank Track.
Bank Track has since called for the European Commission and Austrian authorities to step in and investigate new allegations that Raiffeisen's Russian operation has been helping sanctioned entities evade Western restrictions.
With the start of such an investigation, Bank Track also would expect Austria "not (to) authorize the unfreezing of sanctioned shares while those investigations are ongoing."
The European Commission spokesperson told the Kyiv Independent that they are aware of the allegations made against Raiffeisen, and that Raiffeisen denies the allegations.
"We are in contact with Member State authorities who are competent to investigate such allegations," the spokesperson said.
The date at which Raiffeisen can request Austria to unfreeze the assets is expected to be Oct. 20.