‘Judging Freedom’ edition of 17 December: Will the EU Steal Russian Bank Deposits?

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The has been a torrent of news these past several days bearing on the title given to today’s discussion with Judge Andrew Napolitano.

From the results of the paper voting of EU Member States last Friday in which von der Leyen invoked emergency powers to override any possible vetoes, she succeeded in ending the six-monthly renewals of the freeze on Russian state assets held in Euroclear (Belgium) and making the freeze unlimited in time. For this she surely benefited from the argument that this would provide the EU with leverage against the United States and reserve for them a seat at the peace negotiations table which they otherwise would not enjoy.

Then on Monday, at a meeting of the Coalition of the Willing hosted by German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, and attended by Trump’s emissaries Witkoff and Kushner, as well as by Volodymyr Zelensky, the decision was taken to approve a peace proposal that incorporated all conditions that the Ukrainians have sought from the beginning of the conflict: a ‘security guaranty’ would be include NATO member states providing ‘boots on the ground’ in Ukraine, the armed force would be trained by European advisers and would number 800,000, the U.S. would participate in defending Ukrainian sovereignty by clauses similar to Article 5 of the NATO treaties, no territorial concessions to Russia would be made, the Russians would be obliged to pay reparations to Ukraine and the Russian leadership would be brought to justice. 

Incredibly, Trump’s emissaries sat through these discussions and said at the conclusion that peace was now closer than ever before, an idea which Donald Trump himself repeated publicly later in the day.

In a speech to Dutch legislators in The Hague on Tuesday, Zelensky boasted about these terms and said that the Russian aggression would be punished, thereby reinforcing international law.

This utter collapse of the Trump position on the peace which favored realism and acknowledgement of the Russian military victory did not promise anything good for the meetings in Brussels tomorrow and Friday to decide on confiscation of the frozen Russian state assets.

However, this morning’s edition of ‘Le Soir,’ the main French-speaking daily newspaper in Belgium has two full pages devoted to the issue of the disposition of the Russian assets and the domestic politics here relating to the coming Council meeting.  Per Le Soir, De Wever now has the support of ALL political parties in Belgium, north and south, left and right for his veto on von der Leyen’s plans unless she can produce written binding guaranties of all Member States to share the financial risks of the loan operation in case the loan is called by the lending banks.  This could happen under two different scenarios: that the Russians win a law suit against Euroclear for damages over what is effectively the confiscation of their assets OR if the Russians defeat the Ukrainians on the field of battle and force a capitulation, meaning that the peace term do not foresee any Russian reparations to Ukraine.

My present guess is that von der Leyen simply cannot provide such written guaranties to Belgium because there are many naysayers among the Member States to risk sharing, including such heavyweights as France and Italy.

This means that the only fallback position of the Ukraine cheerleaders in the EU will be to raise an EU loan from their own pockets, meaning going to their parliaments to get budgetary approval, and most Member States are loathe to do that. 

Accordingly, if the loan scheme fails this Friday in the European Council, then it is highly likely that Ukraine will be bankrupt in Q1 2026 and the war will end at the negotiating table in capitulation of Kiev.

As we also discuss in this Judging Freedom episode, the shocking flip-flop of Trump on the peace terms that we have seen these past two days is setting off a fierce fight within the highest decision-making levels of the Kremlin.  Putin’s bet on Trump is shown up to have been a strategic mistake. Hardliners including the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Ryabkov who said that diplomacy had exhausted its utility several weeks ago are now the winners in the debates around Putin.   The president’s ‘gently, gently’ approach to managing the war is shown to be wrong.   We may therefore expect a big change in Putin’s next moves towards escalation.  It would be best if he followed the advice of many in the elites who want him to blow up Kiev and end the war with a decapitation strike.

©Gilbert Doctorow, 2025

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Published by gilbertdoctorow

Gilbert Doctorow's latest book, "War Diaries. The Russia-Ukraine War, 2022-2023" is a unique contribution to literature on the war thanks to the author's reports on the Russian home front written during his periodic visits to St Petersburg at a time when Russia no longer issued visas and nearly all Western journalists had left the country. Doctorow's two-volume "Memoirs of a Russianist" published in 2020 also constitutes a category of its own, consisting largely of diary entries rather than reminiscences written decades later.. Volume 2 focuses on the community of 50,000 expatriate managers working and living in Moscow during the 1990s, about which none of his peers has yet to write. Gilbert Doctorow is a professional Russia watcher and actor in Russian affairs going back to 1965. He is a magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College (1967), a past Fulbright scholar, and holder of a Ph.D. with honors in history from Columbia University (1975). After completing his studies, Mr. Doctorow pursued a business career focused on the USSR and Eastern Europe. For twenty-five years he worked for US and European multinationals in marketing and general management with regional responsibility. From 1998-2002, Doctorow served as the Chairman of the Russian Booker Literary Prize in Moscow. During the 2010-2011 academic year, he was a Visiting scholar of the Harriman Institute, Columbia University. Mr. Doctorow is a long-time resident of Brussels.

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2 thoughts on “‘Judging Freedom’ edition of 17 December: Will the EU Steal Russian Bank Deposits?”

  1. I would say that the correct Russian war approach should be to kill as many ukrainians as possible. I would further say that that is what they have been doing and what they will continue to do. It simply is not in Russia’s interest to end the war. Russia becomes more powerful everyday. Militarily and internationally.

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  2. I would say that the correct Russian war approach should be to kill as many ukrainians as possible. I would further say that that is what they have been doing and what they will continue to do. It simply is not in Russia’s interest to end the war. Russia becomes more powerful everyday. Militarily and internationally.

    Like

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