According to Al Jazeera, Luxembourg’s finance ministry said it had authorized the unblocking of certain frozen funds or economic resources held at the Clearstream clearinghouse by Russia’s National Settlement Depository (NSD).

Issuance of a general license should allow unauthorized Russian investors to transfer assets from NSD, Russia’s domestic clearing agent, which was sanctioned by the EU in June, to other locations.

Luxembourg’s finance ministry said the funds would be released “provided that these funds or economic resources are necessary to terminate, by January 7, 2023, operations, contracts or other agreements entered into with the relevant entity or otherwise involved by June 3, 2022 year”.

Luxembourg froze Russian assets worth 5.5 billion euros after the start of the war in Ukraine.

So far, Luxembourg has supplied Ukraine with arms and materials worth 72 million euros, which is 16% of the defense budget of the Grand Duchy.