The EU will use €1.4 billion ($1.6 billion) taken from interest generated by frozen Russian assets to help Ukraine, the European Commission said on Wednesday.
The European Union will provide €1.4 billion ($1.6 billion) to Ukraine using interest earned on frozen Russian central bank assets, the European Commission announced on Wednesday.
According to the Commission, the funds were transferred to the EU on August 3 and were generated from cash balances linked to Russian state assets that were frozen after Moscow launched its invasion of Ukraine.
Announcing the decision, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said Russia should bear the financial consequences of the destruction caused by the war.
”We are making a further €1.4 billion of them available to Ukraine. This will support Ukraine’s continued resistance against Russia’s illegal war,” she added.
It comes after President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Wednesday that Russian attacks on Kyiv and its surrounding region killed 17 people and wounded dozens as Ukraine’s depleted air defences failed to stop any of Moscow’s incoming missiles overnight.
The barrage, which lasted about two hours, was the latest in a series of large-scale Russian missile strikes that have become almost routine this summer. Moscow is exploiting Ukraine’s critical shortage of interceptors for the US-made Patriot systems, the sole air defence weapon in its arsenal able to shoot down ballistic missiles.
Zelenskyy has pleaded with other countries, especially the US, to send more of the ammunition made scarcer by the Iran war. Failing that, he wants to make Patriot ammunition in Ukraine or win permission from Elon Musk to use his Starlink satellite communications system to guide strikes inside Russia that can hit its missile launchers.
It’s unclear how many interceptors Ukraine has left. Zelenskyy said after a Russian aerial attack Friday night that air defences shot down only one ballistic missile “solely because there are no missiles for the Patriots.” Supplies of air defence missiles for Ukraine in the first half of this year fell to one-third of the 2025 level, Zelenskyy said.
“Ballistic interceptors are what could have saved the lives of those killed today,” Zelenskyy said Wednesday on social media. “It is very important for our partners to understand that delays in supplying them, or a reluctance to hand over anti-ballistic systems, lead directly to such horrific casualties and destruction.”
The targets hit in the barrage included a brewery, a warehouse for construction material, and a mail sorting office that had nothing to do with the war, Zelenskyy said. But Russia’s Defence Ministry said the businesses had military ties.
Thursday was set as an official day of mourning for the 17 people killed, said Tymur Tkachenko, head of Kyiv’s regional military administration. In addition to the dead, at least 44 people were injured.
Ukraine retaliates with long-range drones
With US-led peace efforts apparently stalled, Ukraine has stepped up its deep strikes on key Russian targets such as oil refineries to try to compel Russian President Vladimir Putin to negotiate. Zelenskyy has accepted an unconditional ceasefire demanded by U.S. President Donald Trump but Putin has refused.
In its latest attack on facilities for Russia’s biggest online retailer Wildberries, Ukrainian drones hit a warehouse in the Tula region south of Moscow, the company and the region’s governor said.
Ukraine has struck over a dozen Wildberries facilities in under three weeks, saying the company provides goods that can be used by the military. Kyiv is also keen to unsettle the Russian public with high-profile attacks.
The Russian Defence Ministry said its forces downed 475 Ukrainian drones overnight over 16 Russian regions, as well as in illegally annexed Crimea and the waters of the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea.
With inputs from agencies
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