The Node: Freezing 200 million Russian assets • The United States: China’s silence on the invasion says a lot

More Russian funds have been frozen than Finance Minister Kaag reported earlier this week. She wrote in a letter to the Chamber of Deputies that 6 million euros of Russian assets in the Netherlands were frozen. According to the head of De Nederlandsche Bank, Klaas Knot, it is now €200 million. Announce it in news hour†

The difference is too big, Knot says, because the assets haven’t been completely frozen yet. The sum of 6 million raised questions, because a country such as Belgium, for example, has already frozen 10 billion euros. Knot does not expect that we will reach such a sum in the Netherlands. “This comparison with Belgium is not entirely fair. Belgium plays a much larger role in international payment transactions.”

In the Netherlands, most relations with Russia are conducted through a credit bureau. “This is an administrative office, but the assets are simply not in the Netherlands. There is little to be frozen there.”

Trust offices are forced to stop providing financial services to Russian clients, however, now about a hundred reports have been received from trust offices. But Knott says that doesn’t result in “staggering amounts”.