EU pledges two more years of Ukraine aid, unveils new Russia sanctions

Kyiv wants free hand with loan cash

A senior official in Zelenskiy’s administration told Reuters that Ukraine needed the funds by the end of the year and autonomy over how to spend them.

The European Commission suggested a compromise whereby the majority of the loan would be spent on Ukrainian and European weapons but a smaller part would be for general budget support, which Kyiv could also use to buy arms from outside Europe.

Russia has described the idea as an illegal seizure of property and warned of retaliation.

(Reporting by Lili Bayer, Andrew Gray, Julia Payne, Philip Blenkinsop, Sudip Kar-Gupta, Bart Meijer, Benoit Van Overstraeten, Jan Strupczewski, Charlotte Van Campenhout and Inti Landauro in Brussels; Writing by Lily Bayer, Ingrid Melander and Andrew Gray; Editing by Stephen Coates, Kate Mayberry, Aidan Lewis)