 "EU plans to make Russia pay for weapons Ukraine will use against it")
The European Union (EU) is working on a plan to make sure that Russia will fund the latest arms package for Ukraine.
US President Donald Trump on Monday announced that Ukraine will get air-defence systems, missiles, and artillery shells, among potentially other equipment , to the tune of $10 billion. He said the EU will buy the equipment on Ukraine’s behalf.
The Daily Telegraph has reported that the EU has drawn a plan to use profits generated from frozen Russian assets to pay for the arms package.
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After Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, the EU froze Russian assets worth around €210 billion ($243 billion). Even as these assets remain frozen, they remain invested in interest-bearing instruments like government bonds. It is these profits from these assets —and not the assets’ principal value of around €210 billion— that the EU plans to use to fund the arms package for Ukraine.
Estimates have said that profits from frozen Russian assets could provide around €2.5–3 billion ($2.9–3.4 billion) a year for Ukraine’s assistance.
Nato to control EU-provided cash pot to arm Ukraine
Under plans in the works, the Nato’s Ukraine assistance mission —Nato Security Assistance and Training for Ukraine (Nsatu)— will take the lead in using profits from Russian frozen assets provided by the EU to purchase equipment and transfer it to Ukraine, according to The Telegraph.
“It is widely considered that Nato’s support mission for Ukraine —Nsatu— will play the lead role in coordinating purchases of American weapons and their eventual delivery to Kyiv,” a Nato official told the newspaper.
Under what the newspaper called the most likely plan, this is how the EU will provide weapons to Ukraine: Firstly, the Nato will be given the control of the cash pot containing profits from Russian frozen assets and additional funds provided by the EU and Canada. Then, the Nato will purchase military equipment from a ‘shopping list’ of military equipment provided by Ukraine.
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Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski reportedly pushed the idea of the EU using profits from frozen Russian assets to arm Ukraine.
Nato chief Mark Rutte has already said that the bloc will buy equipment from the United States and transfer to Ukraine. He further said at least eight Nato members had already signed up for such a plan.
Details of the plans are yet to be worked out and the White House is yet to finalise what military equipment will be provided to Ukraine as part of the scheme.
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