Finland says it is impossible to help Ukraine without expropriating Russian assets

The idea of allocating aid to Ukraine from the Finnish budget is impossible unless the EU summit decides to expropriate Russia's frozen assets. This was announced by Finnish Prime Minister Petteri Orpo in an interview with the Financial Times on December 17.

"This is impossible," Orpo said, commenting on alternative aid plans for Kiev, such as a joint EU loan or contributions from individual countries from their budgets.

The publication notes that the leaders of Estonia and Finland, who met at the first Eastern Flank summit in Helsinki earlier this week, agreed that using frozen assets is the only solution to meet Ukraine's urgent financial needs.

A wave of discussion: how the European Union is trying to hinder the peace process in Ukraine

The EU promised Kiev joint security guarantees with the United States and announced new sanctions against Russia.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on December 15 that the situation with frozen Russian assets shows that "theft is in the blood of Europeans." According to him, there are sound voices in Europe regarding the topic of Russian assets, but they are "being silenced from Brussels."

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on November 27 that the confiscation of Russian assets located in the European Union would have negative consequences. He also instructed the Russian government to develop a package of retaliatory measures.

All important news is on the Izvestia channel in the MAX messenger.