Trump Administration Joins EU in Russian Frozen Asset Madness
Posted on December 11, 2025 by Yves Smith
The level of derangement among far too many of our putative betters has reached such a fever pitch that mere narcissism and grandiosity seem inadequate as explanations. The latest example comes via the Wall Street Journal, in an exclusive account as to how the Trump Administration intends to avail itself of Russian central bank frozen assets, with the fig leaf that of course Russia would go along to curry favor with Trump and because investing in a busted up country is clearly a fabulous commercial opportunity. Let us not forget that the US tried a more adult version of this plan and got nowhere. It hired BlackRock as an adviser to flog a Ukraine reconstruction fund,1 back the days when the tale that Ukraine would win the war seems much more plausible, and got nowhere.
The interesting angle here is that the US has pitched this goofy idea to EU officials, since they control the bulk of the frozen Russian central bank assets which has been reported most recently as €140 billion or more worth in Euroclear.2
Mind you, the Europeans, in the persons of European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen, and her allies in planned Russian asset heist like Emmanuel Macron, Kier Starmer, Frederich Merz, and Kaja Kallas, are as deluded, but less flamboyantly so, since they are having to labor mightily to paint a veneer of legality over a theft that puts the budgets of EU member states in peril. Part of von der Leyen’s scheme is grandly to apportion liability to each and every member state that is made to participate in this heist, even if it is fiercely opposed.
But back to the more obviously bonkers Trump plan. The Journal account suggests that the Trump plan to use Russia frozen assets in a US managed “fund” for Ukraine reconstruction, which was part of leaked 28 points plan, has set off the frenzy in European capitals to grab them pronto, before the US and Russia can come to an agreement….as if that were at all likely. From U.S. Blueprint to Rewire Economies of Russia, Ukraine Sets Off Clash With Europe:
The Trump administration in recent weeks has handed its European counterparts a series of documents, each a single page, laying out its vision for the reconstruction of Ukraine and the return of Russia to the global economy…
The U.S. blueprint has been spelled out in appendices to current peace proposals that aren’t public but were described to The Wall Street Journal by U.S. and European officials. The documents detail plans for U.S. financial firms and other businesses to tap roughly $200 billion of frozen Russian assets for projects in Ukraine—including a massive new data center to be powered by a nuclear plant currently occupied by Russian troops.
Let’s stop here. The Zaporzhizhia nuclear power plant is not merely “currently occupied”. It is in one of the four oblasts that voted to join Russia and Russia, per its constitution, has made part of Russia. There is simply no way that the West is going to get use of it on anything other than arms-length commercial terms.
Any discussion of power or reconstruction of Ukraine generally ignore the fact that no one other than Russia can execute it. Recall that Russia has already done considerable damage to not just Ukraine electricity transmission but increasing to generation as well. Ukraine’s grid runs on old Soviet standards, as does Russia now. Western businesses simply are not going to set up production capacity to make want amounts to a very large special order of the needed repair and replacement kit. Russian firms are in that business and could be persuaded or induced to gear up for the needed big but time-limited output surge.
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Trump Administration Joins EU in Russian Frozen Asset Madness | naked capitalism
It's an open secret that the US engages in these wars as a means to profit from the reconstruction of a foreign country by foisting the cost on another party. As political supporters of the Iraq invasion boasted during the runup to the war, the Iraqis will pay to rebuild their country from the oil revenues. Ukraine war has gone a step further with supporters boasting that Ukrainians would die instead of Americans and the war would be a valuable testing ground for American weapons. Venezuela seems to be the next in line. The US may have already looted the central bank's gold reserves as they did with Ukraine in 2014. |
