Eve is here. Korybko argues that the EU’s efforts to tighten control over Russia’s seized assets are a result of the US repurposing the 28-point peace plan. While that was an important motive, it was not the only one.
It is true that the leak of the 28-point summary appeared to galvanize European leaders and give them a talking point to further their nefarious and self-defeating plans. But for more than a year, Ursula von der Leyen has been telling us to “grasp, don’t freeze.” And anyone with functioning brain cells will recognize that the United States and Russia are no closer to striking a deal. The US is not even willing to return the FFS, which is US diplomatic property expropriated by Russia. With that in mind, how can you trust them to get anything done? And the European-created urgency is even more absurd given the fact that Russia has no reason to entrust the United States with control of Russian assets for the sake of a U.S.-led reconstruction project in Ukraine.
Therefore, other motivations include:
Further power grabs by Queen Ursula and the Committee
Provide new news hooks to further scare Russia into supporting unpopular leaders like Keir Starmer, Emmanuel Macron and Friedrich Merz
It reinforces the idea that Ukraine is somehow a viable power, but this is consistent with the fantasy that Russia is suffering such heavy losses on the battlefield that if Ukraine can hold out a little longer, Russia will collapse (or better yet, its people will revolt against Putin, allowing the long-awaited collapse and pillage of Russia).
Sir Robert Skidelsky is using military Keynesianism to combat Europe’s declining competitiveness and economic stagnation, argues in a new article. Important sections:
The momentum for rearmament in Europe goes far beyond the obvious security logic of countering Russia. A growing trend in European policy suggests the idea that the rearmament drive serves a second, less publicly acknowledged purpose. As Berg and Meyers (CER, 2025) argue, many of the EU’s rearmament programs are justified through the language of security, but in reality serve as an attempt to revive Europe’s weak productivity and declining industrial base. This is an industrial strategy disguised as a defense imperative, and is in effect a post-pandemic and post-stagnation military Keynesian strategy. Seen from this perspective, claims about Russia’s existential threat function not just as a strategic assessment but also as a political cover for the large-scale industrial mobilization that EU leaders hope will restore Europe’s economic competitiveness.
I agree that Europe needs new sources of growth, but the attempt to smuggle industrial policy under the banner of a wartime base by stirring up fear and exaggerating threats is neither honest nor acceptable. While it may be politically expedient to concoct bellicose ideas to justify economic renewal, it risks corrupting democratic debate and trapping Europe in a permanent militarization that has little to do with Europe’s actual economic challenges.
Andrew Korybko is a Moscow-based American political analyst specializing in the global systemic transition to multipolarity in the new Cold War. He holds a doctorate from MGIMO, which is affiliated with the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Originally published on his website
The real objective may be to reach an agreement with Russia under point 14 of the leaked 28-point peace framework, to prevent the (then) adversary of the EU from investing large sums of seized assets in joint projects, perhaps in energy or rare earths, after the conflict ends.
Russia condemned the EU’s recent decision to lock up seized assets indefinitely. This is a special procedure that scandalously circumvents the veto power of member states in order to thwart the blockade by Hungary and Slovakia. The move could come before PAD confiscates some of those funds and hands them over to Ukraine or uses them as collateral for loans to the country. The official purpose would be to fund the purchase of more weapons and aid post-conflict reconstruction.
While the first goal cannot lead Ukraine to deliver the strategic defeat of Russia that the EU desires, completing the second goal will require more than just seized Russian assets. Seizing Russian assets or using them as collateral for loans to Ukraine, regardless of their official purpose, would cause irreparable damage to the EU’s financial reputation. Foreign investors may fear that their assets are no longer safe and that they will be unable to withdraw their assets from EU banks and park future assets there.
Therefore, this alliance could end up losing hundreds of billions of dollars, perhaps more than $1 trillion over time, or even more, even though it is impossible for Ukraine to strategically defeat Russia or completely rebuild itself with the enemy’s stolen funds. All ostensibly for Ukraine. Therefore, there are ulterior motives for the EU to seriously consider this, and there are reasonable grounds to suspect that the EU’s new policy towards Russia’s seized assets is not to help Ukraine.
The real objective may be to prevent the United States from reaching an agreement to invest in joint projects, such as energy and rare earths, with significant amounts seized by its (then) adversary the EU after the end of the conflict, pursuant to point 14 of the leaked 28-point Russia-Ukraine peace agreement framework. Such an arrangement, as described here, could put these two on a path to revolutionizing the global economic structure, thereby accelerating the EU’s growing irrelevance there.
Aiming to avoid this scenario, the EU may decide to lock up Russia’s seized assets indefinitely as a first step toward “legally” asserting quasi-ownership over the seized assets, which could then be confiscated or used as collateral for loans to Ukraine. The special procedures adopted to circumvent Member States’ vetoes have a negative impact on the ability of Hungary, Slovakia, and other interested countries to veto such moves that may occur in the near future.
Transferring legal ownership of assets seized by Russia to the EU to the United States, as proposed here in April, could thwart the plots described above, but this would only be possible if Russia and the United States reached an agreement to use these funds to finance joint projects, which would require solid trust, which does not yet exist. If concrete progress is made in concluding a non-aggression pact between NATO and Russia, or at least if the United States manages Turkish-Russian tensions in Central Asia, this could happen and ensure that all these funds are not stolen.
If the United States takes legal ownership of the seized Russian assets, President Trump would have a pretext to demand that the assets be transferred to the United States under pain of sanctions, which is the only way to ensure that the assets do not end up in Ukraine or become stuck indefinitely. The EU will therefore have to decide whether it is worth the huge cost of destroying its financial reputation just to prevent Russia and the United States from coming closer together, but if it does so, the two countries may subsequently work together against the EU.
