European governments will need to quickly decide how to shore up Ukraine’s wartime finances until the end of 2028, Taoiseach Micheál Martin has said, as frantic efforts are made to patch up Kyiv’s relationship with the Trump administration.
Ukraine is heading into what will be a cold winter lacking sufficient air defence interceptors to shoot down Russian missiles. More broadly, Kyiv is facing a yawning gap in its budget next year that could be as large as €70 billion.
The EU’s national leaders are in Brussels for a summit on Friday, where they reiterated their support for Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy following the latest breakdown in his relations with Washington.
Angered by Ukrainian strikes on Russian oil refineries, US president Donald Trump has turned against Zelenskiy, striking a deal with Vladimir Putin to buy Russian diesel and reportedly suspending the sharing of US satellite intelligence that has been vital to Ukraine’s defences.
Speaking in Brussels, the Taoiseach said some sort of “pan-European financial injection” would be required to cover Ukraine’s budget shortfall.
Martin said he was “open” to different ways the EU could finance such support. “We would look at all options in terms of how we can support Ukraine,” he said.
He defended the Republic’s financial contributions to Ukraine, after Dutch prime minister Rob Jetten said some EU governments were not pulling their weight.
“We are net contributors [to the EU budget] and through any European mechanism and facility, we will be higher contributors than most … I think that’s the ultimate way to do it, and it’s the proper and effective way,” Martin said.
Late last year EU leaders agreed to jointly borrow funds as a bloc to finance a €90 billion loan to Ukraine.
Kyiv has been burning through the money quicker than anticipated, due to the intensity of the fighting and changing nature of the war, plus a drop in aid coming from other western allies.
The loan had been backstopped by a €200 billion pile of Russian central bank assets, which are frozen in European financial institutions by the EU’s regime of economic sanctions.
A previous EU plan to use the Russian assets to refill Ukraine’s coffers, in lieu of war reparations from Moscow, ran aground after Belgium expressed concerns about the legality of touching the sanctioned assets.
The last attempt to use the immobilised Russian central bank cash “came to naught in the end”, Martin noted on Friday.
“So I’m conscious of the amount of energy and effort put into that on the last occasion, I would be more in favour of doing something efficiently and effectively and as quickly as we possibly can,” he said.
“In terms of the medium term, over 2027 and 2028, I think we need to focus on that, whether it’s the immobilised assets or other mechanisms, I’m open,” he said.
The Fianna Fáil leader said Europe needed to continue its “outreach” to the US, to stress how Russia had been the aggressor who started the war.
Zelenskiy travelled to Brussels to join the European Council summit for the portion of the discussion about Ukraine.
Speaking beforehand, Zelenskiy said European leaders who continued to stand by Ukraine were “real leaders”.
The Ukrainian president said there was no sign at all that Russia was interested in peace. Finding a way to plug the gap in Ukraine’s budget for 2027 was a “key” question that needed to be answered, he said.
“This is no time to withdraw support to Ukraine, this is no time to relieve Russian sanctions,” said European Council president António Costa, before welcoming Zelenskiy to the EU summit.