Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy implored European Union allies to overcome their divisions on the use of frozen Russian assets, saying fresh funding is critical for his war-battered economy to stay in the fight against Moscow.
“I hope, God bless, we will get this decision,” Zelenskyy told Bloomberg Television in an interview late Wednesday in Kyiv. Otherwise, “We will have to find an alternative, it’s a question of our surviving. That’s why we need it very much. And I count on partners.”
The E.U. has postponed until December a decision on tapping the Russian state assets to provide €140 billion ($162 billion) in loans to Ukraine, which needs new funding by early next year.
Russia in the meantime is slowly advancing on the battlefield and attacking Ukraine’s energy infrastructure to undermine its economy as the winter months approach.
Russia’s invasion has dragged well into its fourth year as Zelenskyy’s government deals with a battered economy and exhausted fighting forces in Europe’s worst conflict since World War II. There’s also been a shift away from unqualified Western support for Kyiv since President Donald Trump’s return to the White House.
With U.S. funding halted, European governments have vowed to step up assistance to fend off a new threat from the Kremlin.
The bloc last month failed to overcome objections from Belgium, which holds the biggest share of the Russian funds and wants greater assurances that it won’t be liable for potential legal risks. Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico also said Saturday that he won’t support any plan to seize the Kremlin’s assets “if those funds would be spent on military costs in Ukraine.”
E.U. Economy Commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis warned last week that it must offer a “credible” funding commitment to Ukraine to unlock new International Monetary Fund support for Kyiv. The IMF has started talks with Ukraine on an aid package that could total $8 billion.
“Russia has to pay for this war” — and money from frozen assets will help Ukraine to buy more air defenses from the U.S. and Europe and finance its drone output to strike at Russian targets, Zelenskyy said.
“We don’t have additional money and this is the way — and this is fair,” the Ukrainian leader said.
He suggested Trump could send “a good signal” for European leaders to act by making use of billions in Russian assets frozen in the U.S.
Trump has “more than five billion of assets, maybe he will decide to spend this money — it’ll help,” Zelenskyy said. Past U.S. actions such as energy sanctions had spurred “European partners also to some strong decisions,” he said.
The president disclosed that Ukraine has started producing interceptor drones together with the U.S. “American-Ukraine production, co-production,” he said. “I hope that in future we will have more.”
‘Psychological intimidation’
Zelenskyy said Russian President Vladimir Putin had waged a deliberate campaign of intimidation against Europe with recent incursions by drones and fighter jets into NATO airspace. It succeeded in making leaders more reluctant to send air-defense systems to Ukraine, he said.
“I think he scared them, that was his goal, and he achieved it,” Zelenskyy said. “It was psychological intimidation, without a doubt.”
He acknowledged that Ukraine was facing a “very difficult” situation in the city of Pokrovsk in the eastern Donetsk region, where Russian forces are attempting to seize control after months of intense fighting. Zelenskyy insisted that any decision on a troop withdrawal was a matter for military commanders on the ground.
“Nobody is pushing them to die for the sake of ruins,” he said. “I will support our soldiers, especially commanders who are there, how they can control the situation. Or it’s too costly for us — the most important for us is our soldiers.”
Russia is seeking a victory in Pokrovsk to try and persuade Trump that Ukraine should pull out of the whole of the eastern Donbas, consisting of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, to end the war, according to Zelenskyy.
“We cannot leave eastern Ukraine. Nobody will understand that, people won’t understand that,” he said. “And the main thing is that nobody will guarantee you that if they seize this or that town, they won’t move further. There is no deterrent factor.”
He insisted that Russian forces “don’t have that much strength” and are targeting Ukraine’s energy system as part of efforts to force Ukraine into submission before the spring.
“They know that as soon as the energy factor disappears, they don’t have other strong factors,” the president said.
Ukraine’s anti-corruption agencies announced this week that they’d uncovered “large-scale” graft linked to spending on defense of the country’s energy sector. Zelenskyy vowed to support a full investigation into the widening corruption scandal that’s engulfing the Ukrainian elite including his former business partner.
“The most important thing is sentences for those people who are guilty,” he said. “The president of a country at war cannot have any friends.”
Diplomacy to reach a ceasefire has stalled since Trump held summit talks with Putin in Alaska in August. He abandoned plans for a second summit with Putin, this time in Budapest, after the U.S. concluded Russia wasn’t ready to move away from its maximalist demands in negotiations for a peace deal.
Ukraine remained “open for talks with the Russians” to reach a ceasefire sought by Trump.
“If they, indeed, want to end the war or they are ready to end the war then one needs to switch to a diplomatic track. And, again, that’s why I told President Trump that I am open,” Zelenskyy said.
“They don’t respect the law, but they really respect the United States - they respect President Trump,” Zelenskyy said of Russia. “I really think that President Trump can push Putin to negotiations. And that’s why this is very important.”
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—With assistance from Olesia Safronova, Volodymyr Verbianyi and Tony Halpin.
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