Berlin open to EU plan on freeing up Russian cash for Ukraine

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(Corrects day of the week in first sentence to Thursday)

BERLIN (Reuters) -The German government is open to a European Union plan to free up frozen Russian assets for Ukraine, a government source told Reuters on Thursday.

The EU plan is to send up to 200 billion euros ($235 billion) of Russian cash held in a Belgian depository to Ukraine and to replace it with EU-backed bonds, according to a report by Politico.

The plan, which would help fund support for Ukraine amid uncertainty over the United States’ commitment to Kyiv under President Donald Trump, is likely to dominate an informal EU summit in Copenhagen next week.

Until now, the EU has taken only interest generated from the Russian assets, which were frozen after Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Germany, the EU’s biggest economy and Ukraine’s second-biggest military backer, has previously expressed legal concerns over any proposals to seize the assets completely. But Finance Minister Lars Klingbeil indicated last week that Berlin was reassessing its stance on the legally fraught issue.

“The German government is open to the debate on the EU Commission’s new proposals,” the government source said, without confirming the exact details of the plan.

The United States has long been Ukraine’s biggest single backer and weapons supplier but Trump says Europe should take on a much greater share of its own defence burden.

($1 = 0.8514 euros)

(Reporting by Andreas Rinke, Writing by Friederike Heine, Editing by Timothy Heritage)