Some EU countries including Sweden, the Netherlands, Spain, and Poland are urging Brussels to revive efforts to use frozen Russian sovereign assets to finance Ukraine, amid fears that Kyiv may once again face a funding crisis. This is reported by the Financial Times online.
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Plans to finance Ukraine using over 200 billion euros of Russian central bank assets held in the EU and subject to sanctions – it recalls – collapsed last winter, after Belgium, where most of these assets are held, blocked the initiative. A letter from a coalition of states to the European Commission will ask the EU executive to resume work on this hypothesis, according to four people familiar with the document, and to clarify whether progress has been made on alternative legal and technical frameworks that could bypass Belgium’s veto.
Profits generated from assets held at Euroclear, the central securities depository based in Brussels that holds most of the assets, are already being used to finance a loan of up to 50 billion euros, agreed in 2024. With Kyiv under pressure to protect its cities from nightly Russian missile bombardments, EU capitals now fear that the country will need additional funding beyond the 90 billion euro loan guaranteed by the Union budget, quickly arranged last December as an alternative to using frozen assets, the FT also reports.
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Another press scoop: the surprise trip of the CIA chief to Moscow was to warn Russia not to attack NATO countries. This is reported by the Wall Street Journal citing some sources familiar with John Ratcliffe’s first known visit to Moscow. The warning follows new assessments by US intelligence, according to which Vladimir Putin might test NATO’s resolve with a limited attack against an alliance country in the coming years.
The news comes just hours after reports that Putin himself is preparing to escalate attacks against Ukraine after concluding that peace talks have reached a deadlock. This is reported by the Bloomberg agency citing three sources close to the Kremlin, according to whom Moscow is considering intensifying attacks with powerful conventional ballistic missiles against Kyiv and infrastructure targets in other Ukrainian cities. The escalating spiral of attacks is leading an increasing number of Russian officials to conclude that Putin might ultimately decide to use tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine.
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