EU to discuss unlocking €140bn in frozen Russian assets to fund Ukraine 

EU finance ministers are meeting in Brussels this morning to discuss economic and financial agenda of the bloc, including the increasingly urgent question of funding for Ukraine.

Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in an interview with Bloomberg, published this morning ($), that the country’s survival relied on getting more funds from allies.

“I hope, God bless, we will get this decision,”he told Bloomberg Television. If not, “We will have to find an alternative, it’s a question of our surviving. That’s why we need it very much. And I count on partners.”

The European Commission still hopes to convince the member states – and Belgium, in particular, as it continues to bloc the proposal amid legal fears – to go ahead with a €140bn reparations loan based on frozen Russian assets.

Commission president Ursula von der Leyeninsisted this morning that it would be “the most effective way to sustain Ukraine’s defence and its economy.”

A final decision on the issue has been postponed until the EU leaders’s summit in December, with the funding needed early next year.

But the talks come at a tricky moment for Kyiv, as Zelenskyy had to move to contain growing public outrage in Ukraine over a corruption scandal in the energy sector, firing two ministers who are accused of involvement in a large-scale bribery scheme.