Post #557

Le Monde (English translation) Anti-Kremlin Russians as Collateral Victims of Sanctions Against Moscow The European Union’s measures targeting the Russian financial system have led to the freezing of assets belonging to Russians exiled in Europe after the start of the war in Ukraine. The Belgian institution Euroclear, which holds €13 billion in private Russian assets, says it cannot unblock their situation. By Benjamin Quénelle (Brussels, special correspondent) Published 15 November 2025 A striking paradox. By sanctioning the Russian financial system, the European Union has ended up penalizing Russians who—anti-Kremlin and anti-war—left their country after the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and have since lived in exile in Europe. “A little-known problem but with harmful consequences,” warns Zhanna Nemtsova, daughter of Boris Nemtsov, one of the opposition leaders assassinated on 27 February 2015, shot in the back on the bridge spanning the Moskva River, facing the Kremlin. Today, he remains an influential liberal figure among Russian dissidents abroad. To preserve her father’s memory, Janna Nemtsova created the Foundation for Freedom, based in Berlin, which defends democracy and human rights. She has just embarked on a new battle: to expose “how the European Union’s sanctions against the Russian financial infrastructure have resulted in the freezing of private capital belonging to people who themselves are not sanctioned.” This is the title of her latest report, which, since its publication on 29 October, has been circulating widely on Russian exile social networks. Nemtsova has touched a sensitive and painful nerve for many opposition figures who have taken refuge in Europe and who have become collateral victims of the sanctions. The European Union has indeed imposed measures against the Central Bank of Russia, but also against the Russian depository, the National Settlement Depository, as well as against major banks and several other financial intermediaries. These entities had deposits with Euroclear; they are now frozen. Beyond the €180 billion belonging to the Central Bank of Russia, the institution also holds €13 billion in private Russian assets. These assets belong to entities under sanctions. But their clients are not necessarily sanctioned, and they are not all oligarchs close to the Kremlin. “Among those affected are largely members of the Russian middle class, including tens of thousands of people who left the country after 2022, as well as individuals with more modest sums,” Nemtsova stresses. A legal black hole In her report, she publishes data provided anonymously by one of the largest Russian brokerage firms: nearly 82% of its clients have frozen assets not exceeding €1,000, and for more than 15%, the amounts are below €11,000. These Russians now need these funds, for the most part, to rebuild their lives in Europe. Euroclear, like Clearstream in Luxembourg, maintains that it does not know the identity of the final beneficiaries of the frozen private assets. “We have no room for maneuver and no latitude to unblock this,” says Valérie Urbain, Euroclear’s CEO. “We have frozen omnibus accounts targeted by sanctions aimed precisely at paralyzing banks’ activities; the clients end up like passengers mixed together, some sanctioned, some not. We cannot extract an individual who is not sanctioned,” she argues. For now, the deadlock is total. What’s more—another paradox—these non-sanctioned Russians have fewer possibilities to take legal action than oligarchs who are under sanctions: the former find themselves in a legal black hole, without any clear procedure, whereas the latter benefit from well-defined avenues under European law to challenge the measures. “We need a mechanism for unfreezing assets, one that is simple and accessible. Today, the system is not transparent and runs counter to the principle of protecting private property, which Europe holds dear,” says Zhanna Nemtsova, whom we met on November 2 during an anti-war forum. Original