The EU will reserve profits from the Russian Federation’s frozen assets for Ukraine’s recovery.

The Council of the EU adopted decisions and regulatory rules defining the obligations of EU Central Securities Depositories (CSDs) that are holding frozen assets and reserves belonging to the Central Bank of Russia.

Thus, the Council of the EU decided that central depositories that own more than €1M in these assets must separately account for extraordinary cash balances accumulated due to EU restrictive measures and store the relevant income separately.

In addition, depositories are prohibited from disposing of the profits received. This enables the EU Council to establish financial contributions to the EU budget, collected from these net revenues, to support Ukraine, its recovery, and reconstruction at a later stage.

These financial contributions can be directed from the EU budget to the Ukrainian Fund, which was created by a preliminary agreement between the Council of the EU and the European Parliament on February 6, 2024.