The European Union is pressing ahead with a plan to use the profits generated from billions of euros of Russian assets frozen in Europe to help provide weapons and other funds for Ukraine, a senior official said Tuesday.
EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell got a green light for the plan from most of the bloc’s foreign ministers this week, and he hopes that EU leaders will endorse it at a summit in Brussels starting on Thursday.
The move comes as Ukraine runs dangerously low on munitions, and U.S. efforts to get new funds for weapons have stalled in Congress.
The 27-nation EU is holding around 200 billion euros ($217 billion) in Russian central bank assets, most of it frozen in Belgium, in retaliation for Moscow’s war against Ukraine. The bloc estimates that the interest on that money could provide around 3 billion euros ($3.3 billion) each year.
“The Russians will not be very happy. The amount of money, 3 billion per year, is not extraordinary, but it is not negligible,” Borrell told reporters.
