European Union countries have agreed to release €6.6 billion from a fund to reimburse member states for arms supplied to Ukraine, the bloc’s top diplomat said Friday.
EU states have been waiting for years for reimbursement under the bloc’s European Peace Facility fund, with the payments vetoed by the former pro-Russian government in Hungary.
Budapest changed tack after Peter Magyar replaced Viktor Orban as prime minister in April, and EU capitals have been discussing how to use the money since.
EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said Friday that €4.7 billion would go to reimburse member states – and some have already said they would use their shares to help Ukraine fight Russia.
Some €900 million will fund the EU-led training mission for Ukrainian forces and €1 billion will fund new joint procurement of equipment, Kallas said.
«Moscow’s hybrid attacks try to intimidate Europe into scaling back its support for Ukraine. Europe is doing the opposite,» she said on social media.
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Ukraine: Deadly Russian drone strike hits central Kyiv
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At least five killed in Kyiv
The move comes as at least five people were killed in Russian strikes on Kyiv during the day on Friday, including a 14-year-old boy, local authorities said.
Ukraine’s leader Volodymyr Zelensky disclosed earlier in the day that US President Donald Trump had approved licences for Ukraine to build Patriot air defence systems.
Zelensky has repeatedly called on Ukraine’s Western allies for better air defence systems to combat increasingly deadly barrages of drone and missile strikes, with hopes of producing the advanced Patriots under US licence.
With attacks in Kyiv intensifying, blasts again rang out across the capital in the early afternoon, sending some people running for shelter, while others walked by without reacting, an AFP journalist saw.
Shortly afterwards, Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said four people had been found dead, with dozens more injured. An earlier attack coinciding with the morning commute killed a 14-year-old boy.
Israel’s foreign ministry said the teenager was an Israeli citizen and his mother was among those wounded.
Zelensky condemned the strike – the latest hitting civilian targets, transport infrastructure, warehouses and residential areas – calling it «absolutely savage and sickening» and «devoid of any military logic».
AFP journalists at the scene saw residents gathering around a multi-storey building with apartments on the ninth and 10th floors left charred by the impact.
Russia used to target Kyiv mainly during hours of darkness but now often attacks in broad daylight, with jet-powered drones heard and even seen flying overhead.
Alisa Boyko, who lived in the high-rise struck on Friday morning, said the Kremlin‘s objectives were clear.
She said Russian forces were seeking to «torment» Kyiv residents «so that everyone is affected, one way or another».
Moscow has been increasingly firing at the capital with newly developed jet-powered drones, which have succeeded in bypassing some of the drone interception systems developed by Ukraine.
(FRANCE 24 with AFP)
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