EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell has raised the issue of using frozen Russian foreign exchange reserves to rebuild Ukraine.
The EU should consider confiscating the funds, he told the Financial Times.
Following Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the EU and its western allies froze international reserves held by the Russian central bank as a sanctions measure.
Borrell points to the example of Afghanistan: Here, after the radical Islamic Taliban took power, the USA put the assets of the Afghan central bank on hold and used part of them to support the Afghan people.
"We have the money in our pockets," says Borrell.
"And someone has to explain to me why it's good for Afghan money and not good for Russian money."
In mid-March, Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov admitted that the central bank could no longer access foreign exchange reserves of $300 billion.
As a result of the sanctions imposed by the West, access to around half of the currency reserves has been lost.
So far, however, Russia has been able to service its dollar-denominated bonds, albeit with delays.
However, recently it had to be resorted to forex holdings in Moscow.
With its measures, the West aims to ensure that Russia has to use up its remaining foreign exchange reserves very quickly.
This is intended to limit the ability to finance the war in Ukraine.