German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said on Monday he would call on the European Union to use frozen Russian assets to provide a 140 billion euro loan to Ukraine to finance its military efforts at an upcoming EU summit, Reuters reported, BTA reported.
Merz first advocated for an interest-free EU loan secured by frozen Russian assets in late September.
The European Commission estimates that around 200 billion euros worth of Russian Central Bank funds are frozen in the EU as a result of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Much of the funds are in the Brussels-based central securities depository “Euroclear“. The interest on these assets is now being used to finance weapons and ammunition for Ukraine.
"We don't want to do this to prolong the war, but to end it," Merz told the Bundestag (lower house of the German parliament) today. "[Russian President Vladimir] Putin must realize that our support for Ukraine will not weaken, but will grow, and that he cannot count on outlasting us," the German chancellor stressed.