Belgium on Friday announced a new package of aid for Ukraine worth almost 100 million euros ($108 million), funded from taxes on the interest earned by frozen Russian assets.
Belgium hosts the headquarters of the international deposit organisation Euroclear and is one of the EU countries that has frozen the most Russian assets under sanctions imposed on Moscow.
Russian Central Bank assets worth approximately 180 billion euros are currently frozen in Belgium, according to the office of the Belgian prime minister.
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So far the Belgian state has generated some 625 million euros in taxes on the interest garnered by the Russian financial assets frozen in the country, the prime minister’s office says.
The latest Belgian aid takes the total amount of military and humanitarian aid the country has sent to Ukraine since the start of the invasion to 300 million euros.
Half of the new package will be made up of armoured vehicles, weapons and ammunition and the rest will be humanitarian aid, a statement said.
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“For the war to end, the counter-offensive planned by Ukraine must be a success,” Prime Minister Alexander De Croo said.
“The additional aid that Belgium is providing today will contribute to this.”
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The move by Belgium comes as the EU is studying the legal possibilities of using frozen Russian assets to help with reconstruction in Ukraine.
The United States has moved more aggressively, on Wednesday announcing the transfer of $5.4 million seized from a Russian oligarch to a fund for rebuilding Ukraine.
© Agence France-Presse
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