What the US and European planners of the seizure of Russian assets clearly don't understand, are the consequences to the very financial system they require in their daily financial operations.
It is not only daring but actually self-destructive to think they can change the rules of the game they expect everybody else to follow​, whenever it benefits them and not to realize it will create huge changes in the perception of others who also are following the same rules as Russia was doing when the assets were stolen.
​The idea they can change the rules of such a complex system and not be affected, is foolish.

Below there's another view: ​​

​After the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the U.S. and its allies responded with an economic toolkit designed to strengthen Ukraine and diminish Russia’s war-making capacity. Among the most potent of these tools was to freeze Russia’s foreign exchange reserves and use them as the basis for a large-scale loan to Ukraine. As the Trump administration’s negotiations without America’s allies falter, the future of this economic toolkit is highly uncertain. This post covers recent developments in U.S. and European policy on frozen Russian assets and how they might play into a negotiated peace. 

The status of frozen assets 

After Russia’s full-scale invasion, the U.S. and its allies froze Russian foreign exchange reserves in their jurisdictions. The Russian Elites, Proxies, and Oligarchs (REPO) Task Force—consisting of the Group of Seven (G7), European Union (EU), and Australia—most recently estimated frozen reserves at $280 billion. Many experts (and the Central Bank of Russia) put the figure between $300 and $330 billion. In 2022, most of the frozen assets were debt securities denominated in euros or U.S. dollars. Euroclear, a Belgian central securities depository, managed approximately $200 billion of those assets on behalf of the Central Bank of Russia. Euroclear manages about 90% of frozen reserves in the EU, while France holds much of the remainder. The U.S. holds around $5 billion. 

Most of the debt securities in Euroclear have matured into cash. Euroclear puts the accumulating cash in money markets, where it earns a return at short-term interest rates. In 2024 Euroclear earned roughly $7 billion in interest on this cash, known as “extraordinary revenue.” The government of Belgium collects 25% of this extraordinary revenue—about $2 billion in 2024—and the government has committed to sending it to Ukraine. Separately, in May 2024, the European Council of Ministers—one of the EU’s two legislative bodies—required large central securities depositories, such as Euroclear, to turn over remaining interest revenue to the European Fund for Ukraine. Euroclear made their first payment of roughly $2 billion in July 2024 and made a second similarly sized payment in March 2025. 

Neither the nations of the REPO Task Force nor the EU internally have agreed on seizing the frozen reserves outright, largely citing legal barriers and the fear of eroding international norms. In April 2024, President Biden signed the Rebuilding Economic Prosperity and Opportunity for Ukrainians Act (REPO Act), which authorized seizure in the U.S. contingent upon G7 cooperation, but the Biden administration did not use this authority. In lieu of seizure, leaders agreed to the Extraordinary Revenue Acceleration (ERA) loan at the June 2024 G7 summit. Under the plan, the G7 and the EU collectively lent $50 billion to Ukraine, which will be repaid with the interest on frozen Russian assets. The U.S. and EU each committed about $20 billion; Canada, the U.K., and Japan provided the remainder, about $3 billion each. The Biden administration disbursed the U.S. portion of the loan in the weeks before Biden left office. The U.K. and France unveiled their first loans in early March. According to the European Commission, further extraordinary revenue from Euroclear “will be provided to Ukraine principally to enable it to ensure the repayment of the funds it receives from the G7-led Extraordinary ERA initiative, while a limited portion will continue to be channeled through the European Peace Facility.