Not all EU members are in favour of freezing Russian assets due to concerns over legal basis and reprisal from Moscow.
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin has said Moscow will achieve its objectives and rejected war with the West as the European Union considers seizing Russian monies to fund Ukraine, as the war is now in its fourth punishing winter.
During a high-level meeting on Wednesday with Ministry of Defence officials, Putin was quoted by state media as describing calls in the West to prepare for war with Russia as “hysteria and a lie”.
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However, he emphasised that the Kremlin’s war goals will “undoubtedly” be achieved, adding that 300 territories were “liberated” over the past year.
The Russian president repeated Moscow prefers to deal with what it calls the root causes of the conflict through diplomacy, but remains prepared to “achieve the liberation of its historical lands by military means” if the West refuses substantial talks.
The comments come a day before European Union leaders are to gather for a summit to see if they can agree on using some of the 210 billion euros ($246bn) in assets of the Russian central bank in Europe to advance Ukraine’s economic and military needs.
“One thing is very, very clear,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen told EU lawmakers on Wednesday. “We have to take the decision to fund Ukraine for the next two years in this European Council.”
European Council President António Costa, who will chair the summit, has pledged to keep the leaders negotiating until an agreement is reached, even if it takes days.
EU officials want to use the frozen assets to underwrite a 90 billion euros ($105bn) “reparations loan” to Ukraine.
But amid concerns that the idea is on legally shaky ground and could lead to investors losing their trust in European markets, Belgium, Italy and several other members of the 27-nation bloc have expressed rejection or serious reservations.
Speaking in the Italian parliament on Wednesday, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said negotiations in Berlin were “constructive” and accused Russia of making “unreasonable” demands to keep hold of Ukrainian territory as part of a potential agreement.
But she admitted that finding a legal way to use frozen Russian assets to help finance Ukraine remained “far from easy”, and said Rome would require a strong legal basis for all proposed actions.
In the meantime, United Kingdom Prime Minister Keir Starmer told the House of Commons on Wednesday that his government will formally issue instructions to transfer 2.5 billion pounds ($3.3bn) from Roman Abramovich’s sale of Chelsea FC to humanitarian causes in Ukraine.
The Russian billionaire, who sold the club in 2022 under pressure from the British government after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, must “pay up”, Starmer said.
Battlefield state of play
Ukraine claimed on Wednesday it had taken 90 percent of the town of Kupiansk in the Kharkiv region, which Moscow said it had captured in November.
Russian Defence Minister Andrei Belousov later told a televised meeting of top defence officials that Ukrainian forces were trying unsuccessfully to take control of Kupiansk.
Of the regions of Ukraine that Russia has claimed as its own territory, it currently controls all of Crimea, around 90 percent of the eastern Donbas region, which comprises Donetsk and Luhansk, and 75 percent of Kherson and Zaporizhia. Russia also holds some territory in the adjoining regions of Kharkiv, Sumy, Dnipropetrovsk and Mykolaiv.
Russia and Ukraine have escalated targeting of each other’s energy sites and oil refineries in recent weeks.
