Japan Declines EU Appeal to Tap Frozen Russian Assets for Ukraine

Japan has rejected a European Union request to participate in Brussels’ initiative to channel frozen Russian state assets toward financial support for Ukraine.

The Gaze reports this, referring to Politico.

Tokyo delivered a notably cool response during a virtual meeting of G7 finance ministers on Monday. EU officials had urged Japan to adopt the bloc’s legal and financial framework that would allow the monetary value of Russia’s immobilized sovereign assets, such as those held at Belgium’s Euroclear, to be transferred to Ukraine.

Japan, however, “made it clear that it cannot use the roughly $30 billion in frozen Russian assets located in its jurisdiction to provide a loan to Ukraine,” the diplomats said.

The European Commission aims for EU members to reach agreement by 18 December on a mechanism to leverage up to €210 billion in sanctioned Russian assets. But Belgium, home to Euroclear and the bulk of the holdings, remains wary. Brussels fears that if the legal landscape shifts and Moscow is later able to reclaim its funds, Belgium could be left solely responsible for compensating Russia.

Belgium’s Prime Minister Bart De Wever has therefore pressed G7 partners outside the EU to join the initiative, arguing that broader participation would reduce the risk of Russia retaliating specifically against Belgium.

Both the United States and Japan have declined to join the EU-led plan, leaving the bloc to carry most of the financial and political responsibility for supporting Ukraine in the long term.

Japan’s finance minister, Satsuki Katayama, reiterated that Tokyo cannot repurpose frozen Russian sovereign assets due to legal constraints. U.S. officials, meanwhile, signaled that Washington intends to scale back financial support for Kyiv once the remaining tranches of the G7 loan, agreed under the Biden administration in 2024, have been disbursed.

Despite these setbacks, the G7’s joint statement following Monday’s meeting notes that the group remains open to discussing the full confiscation of all frozen Russian assets as part of efforts to secure a “just peace” in Ukraine.

As The Gaze previously reported, seven European Union member states have called on the bloc’s top leadership to unlock frozen Russian assets in order to finance a new “reparations loan” for Ukraine.

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