I had a detailed discussion with Ursula @vonderleyen on how to ensure our country’s financial resilience this year and next. We are grateful for the EU’s decision on the €90 billion loan, and Ukraine is meeting its commitments under the loan to cover as much of the budget gap as possible. We agreed that our teams will work on other ways to provide financial support as well.
We also discussed sanctions. At a time when Russia is carrying out brutal attacks on our people – and even now, during the UN General Assembly, air raid alerts are ongoing in many regions because of drones and ballistic missiles – signals about lifting sanctions on individual Russian oligarchs are self-defeating and counterproductive. Wars end through resolve and strength, not concessions to the aggressor’s entourage. I’m grateful to Ursula for her readiness to work on adding more Russian names to the EU sanctions lists. These are the kinds of steps that bring a just peace and guaranteed security closer. Thank you!
Dear Volodymyr @ZelenskyyUa, Europe is working harder than ever to strengthen Ukraine’s defence.
Our new 🇪🇺🇺🇦 anti-ballistic programme can help rapidly scale up production.
More defence support is coming.
And as reforms in the Rada progress, more budget support too.
We have €37 billion still available in this calendar year.
In New York, my message to every leader is clear:
we must all step up support for Ukraine’s defence.