No sanctions for oligarchs: Dutch banks safekeeping billions of Russian assets 

The Central Bank of the Netherlands (De Nederlandsche Bank) has €80 billion worth of Russian assets, yet has only frozen about 200 million of these assets under the new sanctions — beetje raar toch? (bit weird right?) 🤔

What’s really worth mentioning is that €45 billion of these Russian assets belong to organisations and people on the European blacklist, says recent research done by Het Financieele Dagblad (FD). 

What’s happening?

Let’s get down to business. 🤓 More than half of these Russian assets can be traced back to 14 alleged oligarchs and organisations such as the banks Sogaz, VTB Bank, Bank Rossiya and Gazprombank, reports NU.nl

In comparison to other countries, the Netherlands’ action when it comes to freezing Russian assets is relatively low.

According to NBC News, Germany has already frozen about €50 billion of their Russian assets and France around €64 billion. It seems like the Dutch didn’t get the memo. 🤭

Why is this happening? 

The Dutch government hasn’t necessarily fallen victim to Russian oligarchs but has been actively taking in these assets since before Putin’s attack on Ukraine. 

READ MORE | The Netherlands is a top-three tax haven for multinationals and the super-rich

Sanctions lawyer, Yvo Amar, spoke with the Het Financieele Dagblad (FD) and explained that he expected a much stronger reaction from the Dutch banks against Russia — the Dutch really can’t take a hint, eh? 😳

How do you feel about the Dutch reaction toward these sanctions against Russia? Tell us in the comments.

Feature Image:Depositphotos
Lea Shamaa 🇺🇸🇱🇧
Lea Shamaa 🇺🇸🇱🇧
Lea has a passion for writing and sharing new ideas with the world. She enjoys film photography, Wes Anderson movies, fictional books and jazz music. She came to the Netherlands in 2019 for her media studies and has fallen in love with the country and its culture ever since. She loves to ride her bicycle in the city but also feels the need to overtake everyone on the bike lane (she's working on it).

5 COMMENTS

  1. Very interesting!!
    Good to know as I personally don’t understand much of economy related to politics! But hey, after all it’s only the big guys who win the war ..
    nice and honest writing 😊🙌🏻

  2. Freezing assets doesn’t magically make those assets vanish. They are still there. Just sitting there waiting. Freezing assets is just for show. It serves no purpose.

    • Umm, nope. It prevents these oligarchs from selling them and thereby escaping this punishment. Seems like a purpose to me.

    • You don’t seem to get it. Russian Oligarchs not having access to their assets means they will turn on Putin. This is a process already happening, and it’s very effective. Oligarchs turn into spies and traitors as they realize Putin is bad for business. Matter of fact, The Oligarchs are the monetary backbone of Russia, and when they hate Putin, Putin will go. One of them already put a bounty on Putins head. So there’s that. Figures huh? When you know whats really going on in the world.

  3. Did the Netherlands freeze US or UK oligarchs assets?
    Those 2 countries invaded and destroyed many countries and their human rights records are far from impeccable.
    Double standards.

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