EU vows to bankroll Ukraine

The EU summit takes place after a rollercoaster few days that saw President Donald Trump announce and then back away from plans to meet Russia’s Vladimir Putin in Budapest

- REUTERS

The European Union will Thursday agree in principle to finance Ukraine for the next two years, EU Council chief Antonio Costa said, despite a Belgian threat to block its plan to use Russian frozen assets to aid Kyiv.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, a guest at the EU summit in Brussels, said a quick passage of the plan to use the immobilised Russian assets to provide Ukraine with a 140 billion euro ($163.27 billion) loan would save lives.

Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever, whose country holds the frozen assets that would be used in the scheme, via securities depository Euroclear, laid out three demands to guarantee his country would not shoulder all the risks.