Bolschoi-liebender Banker bedrohte den CEO von Euroclear inmitten von EU-Gesprächen über russische Vermögenswerte

A French banker with close ties to Russia who works inside Euroclear has allegedly threatened its CEO, amid knife-edge EU talks on the firm’s handling of frozen Kremlin assets.

The banker, Olivier Huby, is a board member of Mfex, a subsidiary of Belgian financial-services giant Euroclear, which holds €193bn of Russian Central Bank assets, immobilised due to EU sanctions over Russian president Vladimir Putin’s full invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Huby has no formal managerial or advisory role in the group, but his position has given him privileged access to Euroclear’s top executives, in the run-up to EU negotiations with Belgium on using the Russian money to buy arms for Kyiv and cover basic needs.

Yet at the same time, Huby has such strong ties to Russia that he has flown there 155 times in the past 10 years, according to a joint investigation by EUobserver, Belgian magazine Humo, Belgian newspaper De Morgen, and the UK-based NGO Dossier Center.

And Huby has abused his Euroclear privileges by trying to organise meetings between its CEO, Valérie Urbain, and his Russian intelligence contacts, according to our sources.

Huby also threatened her and a second Euroclear executive when they refused, our sources said.

But for all that, Urbain did not get Belgian police protection.

And Belgian intelligence was unable to investigate Huby, as he lived in France and Sweden, while Euroclear’s French security firm had never heard of him — despite the red flags around his behaviour.

That posed serious questions about whether Euroclear, an EU prize jewel, which holds €41 trillion of foreign assets under management, was adequately defended.

And it raised questions if its executives were briefing Belgian authorities, EU officials, or media while under private duress.

Urbain, for one, told French newspaper Le Monde on 15 November in a rare interview that she would consider suing EU institutions if they touched the Russian funds.

Urbain also told Belgian broadcaster VRT on 5 December that the money should be left alone, a few hours before Belgian prime minister Bart de Wever, EU Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen, and German chancellor Friedrich Merz met for dinner in Brussels to discuss the issue, ahead of an EU summit on 18 December, which is to take a final decision either way.

„Time is of the essence, given the geopolitical situation,“ von der Leyen said afterward on X.

**Huby’s Russia ties**

Zooming in on Huby’s travel, he booked 155 flights in and out of Russia between 1 January 2015 and 18 December 2024, according to data seen by Dossier Center, an NGO in London that is funded by exiled Russian businessman Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who is an opponent of Putin.

Specifically, these included 14 flights after Russia’s relations with the EU collapsed due to its full invasion of Ukraine, after which Huby paused his Russia trips for one year.

He flew mostly to Moscow and St Petersburg, but also to more exotic places, including in Siberia, such as Arkhangelsk, Izhevsk, Kazan, Krasnoyarsk, Novosibirsk, Tomsk, and Yekaterinburg.