What western assets does Russia hold
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Executive summary
Russia's holdings in the West are dominated by large pools of sovereign and central-bank assets — bonds, bank deposits and correspondent (nostro) accounts — that Western custodians immobilised after February 2022, amounting to roughly $300–350 billion by multiple estimates [1] [2] [3]. In addition, Moscow points to Western corporate assets inside Russia (some seized or redistributed) and claims reciprocal freezes of foreign-owned assets, but the scale and legal footing of those holdings are disputed [4] [5].
1. The headline numbers: hundreds of billions 'frozen' in Europe and beyond
Estimates compiled by Reuters, Euroclear and other observers put Russian sovereign and central-bank assets immobilised in Western jurisdictions at roughly €190–€210 billion in Europe alone, and between $300–$350 billion overall in earlier tallies — figures that vary with methodology and timing but consistently describe a very large stock of assets under Western control or limitation [1] [6] [2].
2. What those assets actually are: securities, deposits and nostro accounts
According to Russian central bank disclosures and third‑party reporting, the bulk of the frozen assets are invested in foreign securities (notably sovereign bonds), bank deposits and nostro/correspondent accounts, rather than gold or domestic reserves, with the central bank’s biggest bond holdings reported in the sovereign debt of China, Germany, France, Britain, Austria and Canada [1] [6].
3. Currency and custodial composition: euros, dollars, pounds and European depositories
Russia’s foreign-exchange composition as of 2022 showed large euro holdings (about $207 billion), U.S. dollar holdings ($67 billion) and sterling ($37 billion), alongside yen, Canadian and other currencies; operationally many of the frozen securities and bonds sit in central securities depositories such as Euroclear and Clearstream, which between them have been named as holding the bulk of immobilised Russian assets [1] [6] [2].
4. Non-sovereign western assets 'held' by Russia inside its borders
Moscow has used domestic decrees and court rulings to seize or reassign operations of some Western firms that remained in Russia after 2022, and Kremlin officials have said Russia “froze” an equivalent amount of Western assets inside the country, though independent tallies suggest the value of Western corporate assets actually inside Russia — and the losses different companies have taken — vary widely and are uncertain [4] [5].
5. Legal and political fault lines over use, seizure and reimbursement
Western governments and institutions have repeatedly stressed that sovereign reserves are protected under international law against outright confiscation; Brussels has proposed mechanisms to make frozen Russian sovereign assets usable for Ukraine without technically seizing capital (for example replacing cash on custodial balance sheets with EU-issued zero-coupon bonds), while Belgium and custodians have warned that seizure risks litigation and market fallout [7] [1] [2].
6. Conflicting claims, asymmetric risks and the longer arc
Policy analysts and think tanks note both the political appetite to repurpose immobilised assets for Ukraine and the countervailing legal, market and geopolitical risks: seizing or re‑engineering sovereign assets could prompt Russian retaliation, fuel moves to de‑Westernise settlement systems, and invite lawsuits that central securities depositories fear could threaten their operations — while some US and EU lawmakers continue to press for unlocking more support for Kyiv through these assets [8] [5] [9].
7. Bottom line: large, concentrated, contested and not homogeneous
The simplest, verifiable answer is that Russia’s most consequential “western” holdings are large pools of foreign‑currency securities and deposits — concentrated in European custodians and denominated mostly in euros, dollars and sterling — worth on the order of a few hundred billion dollars and subject to intense political and legal contestation; other claims (reciprocal seizures of Western assets inside Russia) exist but are patchier and contested in scale and legality [1] [2] [4].