Summit divided on idea of loan secured against Russian assets, as Belgium seeks guarantees if scheme goes wrong
EU leaders are racing to secure a funding deal for Ukraine that has been cast as a choice between “money today or blood tomorrow”, but Belgium continues to oppose a loan secured against Russia’s frozen assets.
At a summit billed as make or break, EU leaders are discussing an unprecedented move to tap some of Russia’s €210bn sovereign assets frozen in the bloc days after the full-scale invasion of 2022.
Under the scheme, the EU would provide Kyiv with a €90bn loan to help keep Ukraine in the fight, as Russia ekes out gains on the battlefields.
Poland’s prime minister, Donald Tusk, said leaders had a simple choice: “Either money today or blood tomorrow.”
Surprise surprise, they agreed to do the bare minimum to keep the war running. Let’s remember who negotiated it. If war with Russia starts in the future they will claim they did everything they could to prevent it. They didn’t.
Belgium needs to wake up, because Russia won’t stop at Ukraine. Appeasement doesn’t work. The only thing bullies understand is getting beaten. It’s way less expensive, in terms of both blood and money, to fund Ukraine’s fight than to let the cancer spread.
I’m not behind our prime minister at all, but the core of what he’s saying is “we’ll only do this if we share the risks involved among the whole EU”. Given that no-one seems to be willing to do that, it would appear that he has a point that the risks are significant. I also heard him call the idea “theft”, which sounds crazy in the context we’re in. But then he’s talking about the practice of taking money from countries we’re not at war with, setting a bad precedent if you want to be a financial center for the world. That one’s a little far fetched, even without a formal declaration of war, Russia isn’t just a random country at this point we have a few issues with.
Yeah, the thing is there’s no way to “share the risk”. Belgium is legally responsible for the money. Other countries can promise or sign obligations that they will pay it back to Belgium in case they are held responsible in the future but in the end there’s no way to guarantee it (governments can change, countries can pull out of treaties). So he’s basically saying “we only do this if you do something impossible”. In the end it’s his decision to take and he decided he would rather not help.
The problem is that in this ultrafinancialised world, changes in expectations can have immediate consequences.
If we take that money and eg. Saudi or Chinese investments leave Belgium, that will have immediate consequences.
Not that I approve of any of this, and we should help Ukraine more, but capital runs the world.
All the money in Russian assets should be given to Ukraine in form of aid and weapons.
But, there is money to be made on the war so of course loaning that money is a way better option to bankers and wealthy businessmen around Europe.
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Yeah I don’t see how setting the precedent of “if you start an unprompted war your assets will be seized and used to fund the response” would mean that it would be invoked every slight disagreement.
Invading sovereign nations is a lot bigger of a deal than violating fishing rights. One deserves a much harsher response than the other.
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“We need money to buy the weapons”
“Whatcha gonna do with the weapons?”
“Make a lot more blood splatters”
Yes, that’s how wars work. For the avoidance of any doubt, Ukraine aren’t the ones that started the war, and the whole thing can end tomorrow if Russia just decides to stop invading a sovereign nation
Ukraine aren’t the ones that started the war
That hasn’t spared them from dying in it.
Yes, that’s how being invaded works.
How do folks like you exist? I don’t want violence but to act like it doesn’t have a place in our world? That’s just…silly.
You’re act like folks who are being invaded by murderers and rapists are the bad ones for defending themselves? And asking their allies for help is wrong?
That’d be like being mad at me for using violence to stop someone from hurting my partner and mother of our child. What you except me to tell them “No, stop that.”
Like what. You’re lame as hell.
I don’t want violence but to act like it doesn’t have a place in our world?
It’s entirely insincere to pretend more arms to Ukraine will result in less bloodshed. At best, you can argue “at least the right people will die” assuming you squint and tacitly ignore all the conscripts and mercenaries and civilians involved in this conflict.
But it’s insane to pretend we’re heading towards an end to violence doing exactly what NATO has been doing for the last three years.
I don’t think anyone expects there to be less bloodshed or an end to violence. Yes, I do quite honestly want “the right people” to be the ones to die in this war. Are random Russian conscripts at fault for this? No. Are they in someone else’s country, with guns? Yes.
The Ukrainians owe Russia nothing, and pretending that if we tie their hands and hamstring them and make them less effective that this is a BETTER outcome because there is “less bloodshed” is a fiction. One that I think you are all too aware of.
Where are the calls for Russia to lay down arms and retreat? Russia are the only ones who can end this war tomorrow. I will continue to support getting Ukraine to tomorrow, until they do
I don’t think anyone expects there to be less bloodshed or an end to violence.
That’s right there in the headline. “Money today or blood tomorrow”
Where are the calls for Russia to lay down arms and retreat?
Brother, its all over the EU. But its a hard sell for a country that’s gaining territory in the face of a fracturing and deteriorating coalition of (increasingly il)liberal western states.
It’s entirely insincere to pretend more arms to Ukraine will result in less bloodshed.
It’s neutral, without the money more Ukranians will die, with the money more Russians will. We don’t know how or when the war will end so it’s impossible to know whether the total deaths will be greater or smaller with a better funded Ukraine.
It’s just a matter of taking sides. And I know what side I’m on.
Sure, I can feel bad for the Russian kid drafted into this. But Mercs? Come on now. Guys hired to kill…I’m supposed to shed a tear over them?
And yes, more arms would help stop the bloodshed of Ukraine because they’d be able to defend themselves more.
At the end of the day, Ukraine is the victim in this war, and you are blaming them for fighting back.
The only benefit to beliefs like yours would be that we wouldn’t be going through all this hoopla into fascism and the world we be goose stepping everywhere we go. I’d rather die bloody and beaten than to be on my belly groveling for mercy.
But Mercs? Come on now.
You’ve got a lot of folks drafted into this conflict on false pretexts. Others are being lured in the face of collapsing economies at home.
Thousands of South American soldiers head to Ukraine front line looking for better pay
This war is exploiting the poor and the “undesirables” on a global scale.
At the end of the day, Ukraine is the victim in this war
Ukraine isn’t a person. And the persistent belief that real estate is people is so fucking Libertarian it chills the soul.
There are plenty of Ukrainian natives victimized by the conflict, both through the violence inflicted by invading Russians and the callous ineptitude of the reining Ukrainian leadership. Now that much of the adult male population of the country has been exhausted as cannon fodder, both countries are drawing in surplus males from the international community.
Starving the beast of conflict should be the goal of the international community, not fanning the flames. But because so many of these countries see this conflict as a profit center, and surplus men in their own countries as a threat, we’ve created a real economic incentive to fund the mass murder of Ukrainian civilians and the internationally unemployed on one budget line.
The only benefit to beliefs like yours
You’d rather live a righteous lie than recognize the bitter truth? This isn’t a matter of benefit, its a matter of dispensing with delusions. This conflict is not about reconquering the Donbas from an Evil Enemy. It is about war-profiteering and refugee disposal.
Starving the supply to Ukraine wouldn’t stop this war. It would only allow Russia to take over more of Ukraine and kill more people. A steady and resolute supply of arms and other resources to Ukraine would allow Ukraine to make Russia’s efforts clearly useless and that would encourage Russia to stop - and that’s the only path to peace.
Uh yeah?
Don’t it amaze ya, the dumb shit folks will say?
