Ukrainian Finance Minister Serhii Marchenko was in Brussels on September 28, when a Russian drone flew into the National Academy of Sciences, one of the country’s leading research institutes and a symbol of Ukrainian identity. Moscow’s new strategy of round-the-clock bombardment of civilian targets was already more than a month old, but the strike, which killed two academy employees, still came as a shock. The elegant 19th-century building in the center of Kyiv burst into flames, and a huge cloud of black smoke billowed from the open roof as terrified researchers inched out onto window ledges before climbing down ladders to the street.
“War is longer, war is harder,” Marchenko explained soberly to his audience in Belgium. “Russian jet drones are destroying our logistics, our retail storage, our refueling stations, our data centers.” Tax and customs revenues are falling short of expectations, and Kyiv will need more help than anticipated to get through the winter, not to mention the year ahead.
For many in the minister’s audience in Brussels, it isn’t a question of whether to help, but how—where to find the money. Unlike President Donald Trump, who moved last week to lift sanctions on Russian diesel exports, Europe is determined to stand with Ukraine and keep the pressure on Moscow. “There’s no option where we do nothing,” centrist French member of the European Parliament Nathalie Loiseau explained to me a few days after the academy bombing. “We can’t say to Ukraine, ‘Okay, you’re on your own,’” leaving Kyiv to lose a war that many Europeans believe is all that’s stopping Vladimir Putin from turning his guns on NATO.
But after nearly five years of fighting, Europeans are running out of options, which is why the debate is circling back again to an idea proposed and rejected several times in the past—leveraging the Russian Central Bank assets held in European financial institutions.
