European Union leaders are meeting in Brussels to discuss further backing for Ukraine, including the use of Russian frozen assets to provide a 140-billion-euro ($163.27bn) loan to the war-torn country, drawing fury from Moscow.
European Council President Antonio Costa welcomed Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy to Thursday’s summit as a “future member” of the bloc, announcing that a “political decision” would be made on the plan to use cash balances from frozen Russian central bank securities to cover Kyiv’s funding needs in 2026 and 2027.
Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said he saw “broad support” for the measure. His Finnish counterpart, Petteri Orpo, said he hoped the European Commission would come up with a concrete proposal soon, so assets would be available next year.
But Belgium, home to the Euroclear securities depository that holds the biggest tranche of frozen assets – worth some $225bn – expressed doubts over its legality.
“I have not even seen the legal basis for the decision yet,” Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever told reporters upon his arrival at the summit. He said his country would “stop the decision” if Belgium’s demands were not met.
“I share the Belgian prime minister’s concerns but am confident we will take a step forward,” German Chancellor Friedrich Merz told reporters.
EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Kaja Kallas said the bloc was ready to work on a mechanism to ensure Belgium received the legal guarantees it was seeking. The risks on Russian assets needed to be shared, she said.
Reporting from Brussels, Al Jazeera’s Hashem Ahelbarra said countries were “on the verge” of making an announcement, but alluded to wrangling over whether Kyiv should use the loan to buy European or US arms.
“The Germans, the French, and the Italians were saying: ‘If we release that money, it has to go to European manufacturers of weapons to be used to benefit Europe as well,’” he said.
A senior official in Zelenskyy’s administration told news agency Reuters that Ukraine needed the funds by the end of the year and autonomy over how to spend them.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova vowed a “painful response” from Moscow. She warned that any seizure of Russia’s assets would be illegal, describing their confiscation as “theft”.
EU and US align on sanctions
Speaking at the summit, Zelenskyy thanked the United States and the EU for agreeing on new energy sanctions against Russia, saying they were “very important”.
He received a boost on Wednesday when US President Donald Trump imposed sanctions on Russia for the first time since returning to the White House, targeting Russian oil giants Lukoil and Rosneft.
On Thursday, Zelenskyy was bolstered further by the EU’s greenlighting of a 19th package of EU sanctions against Russia that will hit Russia’s revenue streams through “new energy, financial, and trade measures”, according to the Danish rotating presidency.
“It targets Russian banks, crypto exchanges, entities in India and China, among others,” EU’s Kallas said in a post on X.
The sanctions will see the EU blacklist more tankers in Russia’s “shadow fleet”, used to get around oil export restrictions, and impose new rules on Moscow’s diplomats to curb their travel around Europe.
Danish Foreign Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen said the package’s ban on liquefied natural gas (LNG) imports was an important step towards a complete phasing out of Russian energy in the EU.
Slovakia, which continues to import energy from Russia, had been the final obstacle to the deal. Populist Prime Minister Robert Fico, who has close ties to Moscow, had sought assurances on high energy prices and protections for Slovakia’s car industry.
Speaking at a Russian Foreign Ministry briefing, Zakharova slammed the US measures on Thursday, describing them as counterproductive. Addressing the EU sanctions, she said EU “elites” had to accept their measures were not working.
“Russian goals in Ukraine remain unchanged, and the root causes of the conflict need to be resolved,” she told reporters.
Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said Trump had aligned himself with “loony” Europe, describing the sanctions as an act of war.
Reporting from Moscow, Al Jazeera’s Yulia Shapovalova said the EU and US measures would be “very painful” for Russia and would “definitely hurt the economy”.
“The Kremlin has said that Russia has developed a certain immunity to them, and continues to function, but those who are familiar with the whole situation say that the new sanctions will make the continuation of Russian oil supplies to countries like India, for instance, impossible,” she said.
The US Treasury has given companies until November 21 to wind down their transactions with the Russian oil producers. Indian oil industry sources told Reuters that refiners were poised to sharply curtail imports of Russian oil following the US sanctions.
“There will be a massive cut. We don’t anticipate it will go to zero immediately as there will be some barrels coming into the market” before the deadline, a refinery source said.
Trump said on Wednesday that he would raise concerns about China’s purchases of Russian oil during his sit-down with President Xi Jinping at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in South Korea next week.
No territorial concessions
The Brussels summit takes place after Trump said his plan for a meeting with Russian leader Vladimir Putin, which had caused consternation among Kyiv’s European allies, was on hold because he did not want it to be a “waste of time”.
Following tense talks between Trump and Zelenskyy at the White House last week, in which the former told the latter he would have to make territorial concessions to Russia, European leaders had been eager to show that Ukraine could still count on their support.
But they are also on high alert after a series of Russian air incursions and mysterious drone flights in European airspace and are likely to sign off on a new “road map” to prepare Europe to defend itself against a Russian attack by the end of the decade.
Earlier this week, Ukraine’s strongest European backers, who form part of the “coalition of the willing”, said they opposed any push to make Ukraine surrender land captured by Russian forces in return for peace.
The United Kingdom will host a meeting of the members of that coalition of more than 30 countries on Friday, with Zelenskyy also expected to be in attendance.
Zelenskyy told reporters in Brussels that a ceasefire was possible in Russia’s war on Ukraine but that yet more pressure would be needed on Moscow to make it happen.
He ruled out making any territorial concessions to Russia.
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