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Decision on whether to support Ukraine with a huge loan is pushed to December
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The EU has failed to agree a deal to back Ukraine with the help of frozen Russian assets valued at €140bn ($163.2bn).
The proposed loan would have met Ukraine‘s “pressing financial needs” and propped up its war-ravaged economy for the next two years, but could not be agreed due to legal concerns raised by Belgium.
“Russia‘s assets should remain immobilised until Russia ceases its war of aggression against Ukraine and compensates it for the damage caused by its war,” a declaration by the leaders said. The matter of the loan has been pushed to the next EU summit in December.
Belgian PM Bart De Wever has said he could only support the plan if he had strong assurances that it was legal and that other EU countries would share the risks involved.
Belgian financial institution, Euroclear, holds the assets that would be used to fund the loan.
Meanwhile, Vladimir Putin has warned that Moscow will not bow to US pressure after the Trump administration imposed sanctions on Russia’s two largest oil companies.
The sanctions on Rosneft and Lukoil are an “unfriendly” act which “will have certain consequences”, Putin said, adding that Russia’s energy sector feels confident.
Moscow mayor Sergei Sobyanin said on Friday that air defence systems had downed three drones en route to Russia’s capital.
Five people, including one child, were injured as a result of a drone attack on the Moscow region, governor Andrei Vorobyov said earlier.
Hungary is working on finding a way to “circumvent” US sanctions on Russian oil companies, prime minister Viktor Orban said in an interview with state radio Kossuth this morning.
Orban also said that he has talked to Hungary’s oil and gas company MOL on the topic.
US president Donald Trump imposed sanctions on Russia for the first time in his second term, targeting Lukoil and Rosneft.
Orban, who has opposed the EU’s policy of providing military aid to Kyiv, has long cast Ukraine as a threat to Hungarians, saying its potential EU membership would destroy agriculture and put Hungarian jobs and even pensions at risk.
He reiterated his stance yesterday, saying Ukraine must not be allowed to join the bloc.
Vladimir Putin has derided the new US sanctions on two of Russia’s biggest oil companies as an “unfriendly” act, saying they would not significantly affect the Russian economy and talked up Russia’s importance to the global market.
He warned a sharp supply drop would push up prices and be uncomfortable for countries like the United States.
“This is, of course, an attempt to put pressure on Russia,” Putin said.
“But no self-respecting country and no self-respecting people ever decides anything under pressure.”
Asked about Putin’s claim that the new sanctions would not have a significant impact, Trump told reporters yesterday: “I’m glad he feels that way. That’s good. I’ll let you know about it in six months from now.”
With Ukraine asking US and European allies for long-range missiles to help turn the tide in the war, Putin also warned that Moscow’s response to strikes deep into Russia would be “very serious, if not overwhelming”.
“Every time I speak with Vladimir, I have good conversations, and then they don’t go anywhere,” said Donald Trump, after his latest peace initiative, this time in Ukraine, once again ran into the mud of Russian obfuscation.
In spite of the warmth shown at the Alaska summit in August, and a history of credulity when it comes to Moscow’s version of events, it sounds like Donald Trump may have finally lost patience with Vladimir Putin.
True, he has expressed concern aloud in the past that President Putin is stringing him along, before being mollified by another long telephone conversation with the Kremlin. This time, Putin might have pushed his luck too far.
For a change – and it is potentially a momentous one – instead of indulging Putin, Mr Trump has taken decisive action directly against Russian interests, imposing sanctions on Russia’s largest natural resources giants, Rosneft and Lukoil. This is unalloyed good news for Ukraine and for Europe. It might even prove decisive for the resolution of the war.
At least five people, including one child, were injured as a result of a drone attack on the Moscow region, governor Andrei Vorobyov said this morning.
A drone flew into an apartment in the town of Krasnogorsk, about 20km (12.5 miles) from the centre of Moscow. Four people were hospitalised, Vorobyov added.
Russian air defence units intercepted and destroyed 111 Ukrainian drones over Russian regions overnight, including one over the Moscow region, the defence ministry said.
The UK government has said it is gathering Ukraine’s allies for talks in Whitehall today to ramp up pressure on Vladimir Putin, as the war in Ukraine heads into its fourth winter.
“Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky, prime minister Mette Frederiksen, prime minister Dick Schoof, as well as the Nato secretary general, Mark Rutte, are all expected to attend the meeting in person at the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office today,” a statement from the FCDO said.
A further 20 leaders are expected to dial into the call, it added.
“During the call, the prime minister is expected to call on leaders to put Ukraine in the strongest possible position going into the winter. He will urge leaders to act to take Russian oil and gas off the global market, finish the job on Russian sovereign assets to unlock billions of pounds to fund Ukraine’s defences, and step up the gifting of long-range capabilities to ensure Ukraine can build on its success of this week,” the government said.
“These leaders will also discuss how more can be done to protect energy infrastructure, as Russia continues to systematically destroy critical national infrastructure, plunging millions of innocent Ukrainians into the cold and dark,” the statement added.
Sir Keir Starmer will also announce that a UK missile building programme has been accelerated to deliver more than 100 extra air defence missiles ahead of schedule to bolster Ukraine’s defences through the depths of winter.
Defence secretary John Healey has issued a fresh warning to Vladimir Putin over operations involving Russian submarines in UK waters.
Healey told the BBC there had been a 30 per cent rise in Russian vessels threatening UK waters, presenting evidence of increased “Russian aggression right across the board”.
Asked what his message to Putin was, he said: “We’re hunting your submarines.”
According to the Ministry of Defence, Russia’s submarine activity in the North Atlantic is now back to the same levels as seen in the Cold War era.
In January this year, a Royal Navy nuclear-powered submarine was used to warn off a Russian spy ship operating around UK waters.
The hunter-killer submarine was ordered to surface close to the Yantar after the Russian vessel was caught loitering over critical undersea cables.
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky attended the talks in Brussels yesterday and lauded the latest round of EU sanctions targeting Russia.
“We waited for this. God bless, it will work. And this is very important,” the Ukrainian leader said at the summit.
The sanctions are intended as part of a broadened effort to choke off the revenue and supplies that fuel Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine and compel president Vladimir Putin to negotiate an end to the war.
The EU measures especially target Russian oil and gas. They ban imports of Russian liquefied natural gas into the bloc, and add port bans on more than 100 new ships in the Russian shadow fleet – hundreds of ageing tankers flagged to third-party countries that are helping Moscow dodge sanctions.
The latest sanctions bring the total number of such banned ships to 557.
The measures also target transactions with a cryptocurrency increasingly used by Russia to circumvent sanctions; prohibit operations in the bloc using Russian payment cards and systems; restrict the provision of AI services and high-performance computing services to Russian entities; and widen an export ban to include electronic components, chemicals and metals used in military manufacturing.
A new system for limiting the movement of Russian diplomats within the 27-nation EU will also be introduced.Zelensky urged more nations to punish Russia.
“This is a good signal to other countries in the world to join the sanctions,” he told reporters in Brussels.
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