Ukraine will top the agenda at a two-day summit in Brussels, with President Volodymyr Zelensky joining the leaders via video link
European Union leaders will on Thursday discuss a plan to use billions of euros in profits from frozen Russian financial assets to buy arms for Ukraine as they try to bolster Kyiv in its fight against Moscow’s invasion.
“Now that we are facing the biggest security threat since the Second World War, it is high time we take radical and concrete steps to be defense-ready and put the EU’s economy on a ‘war footing’.” EU leaders have voiced increasing alarm about the state of the war in recent weeks, with ammunition-starved Ukrainian forces struggling to hold back Russian troops and a $60-billion military aid package for Kyiv stuck in the U.S. Congress.
“I think it’s a sensible way of doing it. I think the idea to allocate it predominantly to the purchase of weapons makes total sense,” he told Reuters. Much attention will focus on the reaction of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who maintains closer ties to Moscow than other EU leaders and opposes sending arms to Ukraine.
A draft summit declaration said leaders “reviewed progress” on using the revenues “for the benefit of Ukraine, including possibly for funding military support” and asks EU bodies to “take work forward.”
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