A high-ranking Ukrainian official told AFP on Wednesday that the administration of US President Donald Trump is “pressuring” European countries to “abandon the idea” of using frozen Russian assets in the EU to help Ukraine.
“Seven countries are already publicly not supporting this idea”, the official continued, speaking on condition of anonymity, adding that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is traveling to Brussels to convince European leaders, gathered Thursday at a summit, to use these assets, reports Agerpres.
Approximately 210 billion euros from the Central Bank of Russia are currently frozen in the EU. These were frozen by Western powers following the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
In the initial version of the American president’s plan to end the conflict in Ukraine, published at the end of November, it was proposed to transfer some of these assets to the United States and the Kremlin for various projects.
Even though this plan has been modified several times since then, this initial position shows that the United States seems to want to use these assets as a bargaining chip to reach an agreement, which raises the possibility that Moscow could recover some of the huge sums involved.
The heads of state and government of the European Union meet on Thursday and Friday in Brussels to decide, among other things, how to finance Ukraine, which is at war with Russia, over the next two years.
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