EU to transfer €1,4 billion from profits on frozen Russian assets to Ukraine

The European Union has collected 1,4 billion euros from the profits on the frozen assets of the Central Bank of Russia and will forward the money to Ukraine, the European Commission announced today.

In a press release, the Commission said that today's payment is "the fifth transfer of its kind" and that it has so far generated a total of eight billion euros in windfall profits from Russian assets, Politiko reports.

It is emphasized that 95 percent of the new tranche will go through the Loan Cooperation Mechanism for Ukraine, through which Kiev will repay loans received from the EU and the G7, while the remaining five percent will go to the European Peace Facility, to meet Ukraine's "urgent military and defense needs."

"Once again, we are waking up to news of Russia's horrific crimes. Russia must pay for the destruction it has caused, and we are using the proceeds from frozen Russian assets to make sure they do so," said European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, according to N1.

The European Union has frozen more than 210 billion euros in the reserves of the Russian Central Bank, and from 2024, the financial institutions holding that money are required to redirect the extraordinary profits they make to Brussels, from where the money was forwarded to Ukraine.