The head of European diplomacy Kaja Kallas announced on Friday in Lviv, west of Ukraine, the release of one billion euros in favor of the Ukrainian defense industry, funded thanks to the interests generated by the frozen Russian assets in the European Union.
“We have just released a billion euros for the Ukrainian defense industry so that Ukraine can better defend itself” against the Russian invasion, said the head of European diplomacy on the sidelines of a large group of European ministers.
Westerners have frozen some 235 billion euros in Russian assets since the start of the war in 2022, the majority of which were in Europe. In March, the European Union had decided to draw from the interests received on these assets to finance help from Ukraine, which Moscow described as “theft”.
Caesar
The chief of French diplomacy Jean-Noël Barrot, for his part, announced on Friday during this meeting in Lviv that Paris was going to mobilize some of this revenues drawn from the frozen Russian assets to ensure the maintenance of the caesar cannons delivered to Ukraine.
Europe is trying to strengthen its support for Ukraine, especially since Donald Trump’s return to the White House in January, the American president who strongly criticized the important financial support to Ukraine provided by his predecessor Joe Biden.
