Ukraine is a "black hole" of corruption that has swallowed billions of euros sent by the European Union, Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico has said.

In a social media post accompanying an interview on Saturday with Slovensko Radio, Fico said there had been "shouts" when he previously warned to "watch out for corruption" in Kiev, arguing the EU did not know where the €177 billion ($208 billion) it has given Ukraine had ended up.

He said he wanted no part of a new plan to provide a further aid for Ukraine, "above all" for arms, and stressed he would never back any financial package aimed at buying weapons that would "kill more people."

Fico, who last year survived an assassination attempt by a pro-Ukraine activist, said:

"If you say at meetings of EU leaders that you do not want to provide money for weapons, then you become a villain, because there is an opinion about the obligation to provide money for weapons."

Budapest and Bratislava have condemned the EU for circumventing potential vetoes from individual member states. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban accused the "Brussels dictatorship" of "systematically raping European law."

Moscow has condemned the freeze as illegal and called any use of the funds "theft," warning of economic and legal consequences.

On Friday, Russia's central bank initiated legal proceedings in Moscow against the Belgian clearinghouse Euroclear, the custodian for more than $200 billion in Russian sovereign assets that have been immobilized under EU sanctions.

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Approximately $300 billion USD, according to statements by Russian officials like former President Dmitry Medvedev.This figure refers primarily to frozen funds belonging to investors from "unfriendly" countries (including EU nations) held in special "type-C" accounts in Russia.

Context on Frozen Russian Assets

The EU has indefinitely frozen around €210 billion (approximately $246 billion) in Russian central bank assets, mostly held in Belgium's Euroclear, as of December 2025. These assets remain frozen (not fully confiscated yet), but the EU uses their profits (interest) or backs loans to Ukraine with them.

Retaliation Potential

Russian sources present the $300 billion in type-C accounts as a direct countermeasure of comparable scale to the total ~$300 billion in frozen Russian sovereign assets worldwide (with the majority in the EU).

European-Specific Assets

A significant portion of these type-C funds likely ties to European investors, given Euroclear's role as a major depository for international holdings of Russian securities. Additional targets could include remaining European-owned companies and physical assets in Russia (e.g., factories, banks like Raiffeisen), though their total value is lower and harder to aggregate precisely after many Western exits since 2022. Russia has also referenced seizing around €17 billion in Euroclear-related assets held in Russia.

Russia has already nationalized some foreign assets (valued in the low tens of billions cumulatively), but the type-C accounts represent the largest cited pool for symmetric retaliation. Note that these figures come largely from Russian statements and may not reflect independent valuations of underlying assets or exact European shares.

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