Belgium ready to use part of profit from frozen Russian assets to cover Ukraine’s defense needs - PM Shmyhal

Belgium is ready to allocate part of the EUR 1.7 billion profit derived from frozen Russian assets for covering Ukraine’s defense needs.

Denys Shmyhal spoke of this during a press conference on Monday, an Ukrinform correspondent reports.

"Belgium has declared EUR 1.7 billion in the budget, this is already their income. This EUR 1.7 billion is allocated partly for the support of Ukrainian refugees in the EU, and partly Belgium is ready to finance Ukrainian needs, in particular in terms of defense," Shmyhal said.

According to the prime minister, this was discussed during negotiations with his Belgian counterpart during his visit to Ukraine. The issue will also be discussed during the visit of the Ukrainian delegation to Belgium.

The head of the Ukrainian government also noted that Belgium is ready, together with partners, to consider the option of seizing Russian assets and forwarding them to Ukraine.

"We will work out these mechanisms within this year. We will start this work at the spring meetings hosted by the IMF and World Bank in Washington, and then we will continue at all venues, including our recovery conference in Berlin. I believe that this should be a key topic," said Shmyhal.

As reported earlier, Denys Shmyhal said the seizure of Russian assets should become a reliable source of support for Ukraine and funding the recovery campaign.

The European Union, G7 members, and Australia have frozen about $282 billion worth of Russian assets in the form of securities and cash. All parties agree that these funds should remain unavailable to Russia unless it agrees to help rebuild Ukraine, but differ on the legality of a full seizure of such assets.

Photo: omr.gov.ua