EU backs plan to use frozen Russian assets to fund Ukraine aid

European Union leaders have backed plans to use earnings from frozen Russian assets to help fund Ukraine and pledged continued military support for Kyiv, as it struggles to retake territory and warns that it faces a second winter of air strikes on key infrastructure.

Ukraine said its forces still held the eastern town of Avdiivka despite heavy Russian assaults on Friday, as Moscow claimed to have thwarted a Ukrainian drone strike near a nuclear power station and said a prominent pro-Kremlin politician from Ukraine had been seriously injured in an assassination attempt in occupied Crimea.

“Politically, we agreed that ultimately Russia must pay for the long-term reconstruction of Ukraine... We are currently working on a proposal to initially focus on the so-called windfall profits,” European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen said after a Brussels summit of EU leaders, in reference to more than €200 billion in Russian assets that are now frozen in the EU and earning interest for financial institutions that hold them.

“These windfall profits are already quite substantial. And the idea is to pool them and then channel them through the EU budget ‘en bloc’ to Ukraine and for the reconstruction of Ukraine,” she added.

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Belgium says such profits could generate €3 billion a year for Ukraine, and announced plans this month to use €2.3 billion in taxes from Russian assets frozen in Belgian financial institutions to help rebuild Ukraine.

“The European Union will continue to provide strong financial, economic, humanitarian, military and diplomatic support to Ukraine and its people for as long as it takes,” EU leaders said in a joint statement after the summit, which came amid speculation that the crisis in the Middle East could divert attention and resources away from Ukraine.

The European Commission is seeking more funds from all 27 member states to finance additional spending that includes €50 billion in new aid for Ukraine.

A decision on the bloc’s 2021-2027 budget is expected in December, and Hungary and Slovakia are sceptical about EU plans to send more money and weapons to Kyiv and to tighten sanctions on Russia. Populist leaders in both countries say the EU should focus instead on promoting peace between Kyiv and Moscow.

“Today everyone knows, but does not dare to say it out loud, that this strategy has failed... The Ukrainians will not win on the battlefield,” said Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban.

Ukraine said its troops were fending off intense Russian attacks on the industrial town of Avdiivka in the eastern Donetsk region, and that eight people were hurt when a missile hit a fire station in the town of Izyum in the northeastern Kharkiv region.

Russia said its air defences prevented “an attempt by the Kyiv regime to carry out a terrorist attack” near Kurchatov in the Kursk region, which is home to a nuclear power plant. Earlier this week, Ukraine said a Russian strike damaged buildings near its Khmelnytskyi atomic power station.

Russian sources said Oleg Tsaryov, a prominent pro-Kremlin politician from Ukraine, was shot twice and seriously injured in occupied Crimea late on Thursday night.