Ursula von der Leyen said windfall profits from Russian frozen assets should be used to buy weapons for Ukraine as discussions intensified between European allies about how to continue supporting the war-torn country,
Financial Times reports.
The proposal is the latest idea about how to use the roughly €300bn in Russian sovereign assets frozen by G7 allies in response to Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine two years ago, amid a lack of consensus over the legality of using the funds and the most appropriate way to do so.
“It is time to start a conversation about using the windfall profits of frozen Russian assets to jointly purchase military equipment for Ukraine,” the European Commission president said in a speech to EU lawmakers on Wednesday.
“There could be no stronger symbol and no greater use for that money to make Ukraine and all of Europe a safer place to live,” she added.
Her statement is the first time the EU has linked the use of frozen Russian sovereign assets to potential weapons procurement and comes amid growing friction between western allies about how to support Ukraine. After French President Emmanuel Macron suggested that deploying western troops to Ukraine could not be ruled out, Berlin told Paris to instead “supply more weapons” for Kyiv.
