European Union leaders have made a deal to give Ukraine a €90bn loan after they failed to agree on using frozen Russian assets.
The agreement, which leaders said would meet Ukraine’s military and economic needs for the next two years, came after more than a full day of talks at a summit in Brussels.
“We committed, we delivered,” EU chief Antonio Costa wrote on X announcing the deal to provide a loan backed by the bloc’s common budget.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had urged leaders to use €200bn of frozen Russian assets, but Belgium, where most of cash is held, demanded guarantees on sharing liability that proved too much for other countries.
Zelensky said he was grateful to European leaders for the deal, which he described as “significant support that truly strengthens our resilience”.
He said it was important for Russian assets to remain “immobilized” and said: “Thank you for the result and for unity” in a post on X.
In another development, French President Emmanuel Macron said he believed it would be “useful” for Europe to re-engage with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“I believe that it’s in our interest as Europeans and Ukrainians to find the right framework to re-engage this discussion,” he said, adding that Europeans should find the means to do so “in coming weeks”.
EU leaders avoided “chaos and division” with their decision to provide Ukraine with a loan through borrowing cash rather than use frozen Russian assets, Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever said early on Friday.
Ukraine is months from running out of cash and Zelensky said without an injection by spring Ukraine would “have to reduce production of drones”.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who had pushed for the asset plan, said the final decision on the loan “sends a clear signal” to Putin.
Russia had warned EU leaders not to use its money, but Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said they had to “rise to this occasion”.
