US Weighs Letting European Allies Unfreeze Some Russian Assets

The significance lies less in any specific sum than in the principle: unfreezing sovereign assets, even partially, would blur a line Western capitals have held since 2022, when immobilisation was framed as a durable response rather than a lever to be traded away. It affects European holders of the reserves and, by extension, other sovereigns weighing where to park their own. Whether this stays a floated idea or becomes policy is the open question, and the signal it sends about the credibility of reserve immobilisation may outlast the measure itself.