European Commission expects that Kiev will get first 1.5 billion euro of revenue from Russia's frozen assets soon

BRUSSELS. June 21 (Interfax) --The first payment of 1.5 billion euro to Ukraine from the gains on Russia's frozen assets will be made "before the summer break," European Commission Executive Vice-President Valdis Dombrovskis said.

"In May, member states agreed to use revenue from Russian frozen assets to benefit Ukraine. We estimate that our measures will make up to 3 billion euros available this year, and we expect to make the first payment of 1.5 billion euros before summer break," Dombrovskis said at a press conference following an EU Economic Council meeting in Luxembourg on Friday.

He recalled on the European Commission's previously announced plans to allocate these funds for military support to Ukraine.

Dombrovskis commented on the agreement signed at last week's G7 summit to grant loans to Ukraine for a total of approximately $50 billion using the revenue from Russia's frozen assets. "As you know, most of those assets are blocked in the EU - more than 200 billion euros. The G7 statement envisages making additional loans available to Ukraine by the end of the year. G7 will now operationalize these commitments to use future flows of extraordinary revenues to service and repay loans. Also at the EU level, we are discussing future steps, including the size and modalities of the EU loan," he said.

However, he reassured that the EU would work to mobilize larger financial resources for Ukraine, using the revenue from frozen Russian assets.

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said earlier that the participants in the latest G7 summit, which was hosted by Italy, had achieved a political consensus on using gains on frozen assets of the Russian Federation to provide assistance to Ukraine. "We have reached political agreement on providing approximately $50 billion in additional financial assistance for Ukraine until the end of the year. We are talking about a system of loans. This will not be a confiscation [of the Russian assets], we are talking about using profits from the assets," Meloni was quoted by the Corriere Della Sera newspaper as saying.

Speaking on June 14, Russian President Vladimir Putin described the freezing of Russian assets in the West as theft and said that these actions would not go unpunished.