Brussels 22.01.2024 The meeting of the EU top diplomats under the chairmanship of the High Representative Josep Borrell started with the discussion of the situation in Ukraine, which remains the EU top priority, being a threat for the security in Europe. The EU diplomats received an online update by the Ukraine Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba.

According to his review, Russia achieved virtually no progress on the battlefield, suffering a lot of casualties. In spite of the stagnation on the front, President Putin, ahead of his planned re-election in March continued attacking with drones and missiles, projecting strength appealing to a part of his electorate.
Nevertheless Ukraine has also achieving important military successes, notably in the Black Sea, where the Russian fleet was obliged to withdraw from Sevastopol base in Crimea to Novorossiysk in order to escape the Ukrainian missiles.

“The ministers agreed that this is not the moment to weaken our support to Ukraine” said Josep Borrell during the concluding press-conference. “By the contrary: it is the moment to do more and faster, my preferred words: more and faster. With financial resources, with military equipment, by training soldiers, and all [that] Ukrainians need to defend [themselves]”.

Further he ensured that the EU will continue working to make a predictable assistance, and he himself would travel to Ukraine in the first or second week of February. The EU top diplomat added that he hopes to reach an agreement on a “top-up of €5 billion of the European Peace Facility”, so that we can establish a “Ukraine Assistance Fund”.
“We presented a non-paper in order to make clear to the Member States how the European Peace Facility will work in this new stage, in this new moment. I hope that it will be ready, and all Ministers considered that it was a good basis to review the work of the European Peace Facility under the ‘Ukraine Assistance Fund’” Borrell continued.

While regarding Russian assets, he thought there was a political agreement to finalise this work on the basis of the proposal that was tabled in December, focusing on the revenues. For the time being, it was about revenues, about the windfall profits, and he was “almost sure that this will be finalised soon”.

The top diplomat added that the discussions will continue at the level of Ambassadors, but he saw that the agreement “was coming”. Borrell vowed to make a “strong push” for this decision to be taken before the next Foreign Affairs Council.