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Donald Tusk says bloc will look at using assets in a reparation loan for Kyiv
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Polish prime minister Donald Tusk says the EU has made a breakthrough on using frozen Russian assets to fund Ukraine’s war effort at a key EU summit in Brussels.
Speaking to reporters in the Belgian capital, Mr Tusk said the EU will look at a type of reparation loan which would be based on the £185bn frozen assets.
Earlier, he warned that the EU must choose between “money today or blood tomorrow” as they met to vote on the proposal. The assets may be used to secure a reparations loan for Ukraine but Belgium, where they are stored, has shared concerns about the plan’s legality.
Russia has previously hit out at the scheme as “theft”.
“Now we have a simple choice – either money today or blood tomorrow,” Tusk said on Wednesday. “And I am not talking about Ukraine only I am talking about Europe. This is our decision to make and only ours.”
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky attended the summit in person and called on Ukraine‘s allies to show a united front against Russia.
Ukrainian peace negotiators are en route to the United States and plan to meet the US negotiating team on Friday and Saturday, Volodymyr Zelensky said on Thursday.
The Ukrainian president told reporters in a WhatsApp media chat that there were no final aligned peace proposals for now, reiterating his plea to partners to strengthen Ukraine in case Russia refuses to stop its war.
Moscow also said on Thursday that Russia was preparing for contacts with the United States to get details about US talks with European powers and Ukraine on a possible peace settlement to end the Ukraine conflict.
Volodymyr Zelensky has now warned that frozen Russian assets must not be allowed to be used by Moscow to its political advantage.
“Money is needed so that Russia and anybody else doesn’t use these Russian assets as a leverage against us,” he said.
He adds that it is vital to stop these assets being used as a part of Russia’s negotiation tactics, such as by offering access to the US.
Zelensky also spoke on the importance of security guarantees.
“I believe that the end of the war in general is connected with security guarantees, because without security guarantees it doesn’t mean there will be an end.”
Russia “will come” again without guarantees that “speak to everybody”, including Ukrainian people who want to return, investors, tourists, and so on.
Russia has formed a military brigade which is equipped with its new hypersonic intermediate-range ballistic missile, chief of the general staff Valery Gerasimov said according to state news agency Tass.
Russia fired the Oreshnik at Ukraine for the first time in November 2024. President Vladimir Putin has boasted that it is impossible to intercept and has destructive power comparable to that of a nuclear weapon, even when fitted with a conventional warhead.
Some Western experts have said those claims are exaggerated.
The war will not end immediately if Ukraine finally runs out of funding, a leading military expert has said.
The crunch vote in Brussels on funding Ukraine is set to determine whether Ukraine will secure two-thirds of its funding needs through 2026 and 2027.
“Ukraine relies on economic assistance as well as military assistance in order to continue to function as a state,” said Chatham House analyst Keir Giles, who is an expert on the Russian military.
“But it would be misleading to think that as soon as the as soon as Ukraine goes into the red, the war will end. For Ukraine, just as for Russia, there is no direct and immediate linkage between economic crisis and inability to continue fighting.
“In both cases, it would just make it very much harder and would speed up defeat. But it is not an immediate result.
“So if the European leaders once again fail to meet the challenge at today’s talks, there are still options for ensuring that their front line of defense in Ukraine continues to hold through other means of redirecting finance, in order to ensure that Ukrainian society and the economy can continue to function, and in order to continue to defend Europe.”
Estonia has accused three Russian border guards of illegally crossing into Nato territory on a hovercraft without permission.
The country’s interior minister Igor Taro said the border guards had entered Estonia after crossing the Narva River on the vessel at around 10am on Wednesday morning.
The Estonian foreign ministry will summon the Russian Chargé d’Affaires after the alleged intrusion.
“Today, the Estonian Police and Border Guard detected an illegal crossing of a temporary control line between Estonia and Russia on the Narva River breakwater by three border guards of the Russian Federation,” the ministry said in a statement.
“The Estonian border guard patrols responded to the border incident. After a short time, the Russian border guards returned to Russian territory.”
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Russia’s central bank said on Thursday that it will sue European banks in a Russian court over attempts to use frozen Russian assets to finance Ukraine.
Under international law, sovereign assets cannot be confiscated, so the European Commission has put forward a plan to allow EU governments to use up to 165 billion euros – most of the 210 billion euros worth of Russian sovereign assets currently frozen in Europe – without confiscating them.
EU countries have to share the risk of the entire frozen Russian asset loan project, if it is approved.
The main risk is a scenario under which the EU has to return the cash to Russia but Russia has not yet paid the war reparations to Ukraine. Kyiv only needs to pay back the loan if Russia pays reparations.
Under this scenario, the EU would be left liable for the amount that has been transferred to Ukraine.
EU governments agreed on December 12 that the immobilised Russian assets will stay frozen indefinitely, removing a serious risk that during one of the votes that take place every six months to keep the money frozen, which requires unanimity, one country could break ranks with others and force the EU to release the money to Moscow.
With the risk of an “accidental” lifting of the sanctions removed, the risk to EU governments is very small because their guarantees would only be called upon if EU governments themselves decide to unfreeze the Russian assets before Russia pays war damages to Ukraine.
A British paratrooper killed serving in Ukraine said he “went out doing what I trained to do”.
The body of Lance Corporal George Hooley, 28, was repatriated to RAF Brize Norton in west Oxfordshire on Wednesday after his death in what the Ministry of Defence called a “tragic accident” last week.
An extract from a letter written by L/Cpl Hooley to be opened in the event of his death said “don’t remember me with sadness and loss” because he died “doing what I believed in”.
A private, family-only ceremony was held at Brize Norton before L/Cpl Hooley’s body was carried past Carterton Repatriation Memorial Garden.
People paid their respects along the route, some in tears, and members of the armed forces and police also turned out to honour the soldier.
Mourners gathered at the garden, designed by the Oxfordshire community as a space for people to honour fallen military personnel.
Russian president Vladimir Putin has lashed out at European leaders calling them “little pigs” amid ongoing US-brokered peace talks.
In a bizarre rant against the West, the leader said: “Europe’s little pigs immediately joined in the work of the previous American administration, hoping to profit from the collapse of our country.”
He added that Russia would “liberate its historical lands on the battlefield” or through diplomacy but would achieve its territorial aims in the end. Putin had previously accused Western countries of “hysteria” adding that claims Russia wanted war with Europe were “a lie”.
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