UK to buy Ukraine weapons with frozen Russian asset proceeds
The U.K. has used interest generated from frozen Russian assets to purchase weapons for Ukraine, buying 350 air defense missiles worth £70 million ($87 million), The Guardian reported on June 25.
The move represents the U.K.’s first direct use of Russia-linked funds to buy weaponry for Kyiv.
The weapons purchase was funded through Britain’s Extraordinary Revenue Acceleration (ERA) scheme, which captures interest from frozen Russian central bank assets.
According to The Guardian, the missiles, originally designed as air-to-air weapons, were converted by RAF engineers and MBDA UK in just three months to fire from ground-based systems.
Five additional Raven launcher systems will accompany the missiles to Ukraine, bringing the total to 13.
U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced the package ahead of NATO’s annual summit.
"Russia, not Ukraine, should pay the price for Putin’s barbaric and illegal war," he said.
The package is part of Britain’s largest-ever annual military commitment to Ukraine of £4.5 billion ($5.6 billion), the Guardian reports.
It follows a £1.6 billion ($2.0 billion) deal in March for over 5,000 air defense missiles and a separate £350 million ($436 million) investment to increase drone deliveries tenfold.
The announcement comes as Starmer and President Volodymyr Zelensky agreed to work closely on military production between the UK and Ukraine. On June 24, Ukraine’s Defense Minister Rustem Umerov announced that Britain will finance Ukrainian-designed drones manufactured in the UK.
European countries cannot fully confiscate the frozen Russian assets due to concerns about international law and financial stability. The European Central Bank warned that such a move could undermine confidence in the euro as a reserve currency, since most of the assets are euro-denominated.
Instead, only the interest generated from these funds is currently being used to back a $50 billion loan package for Ukraine, while the principal amount of 300 billion euros ($348 billion) remains frozen but not seized.
In June, Ukraine received another 1 billion euros ($1.1 billion) from the EU as part of the G7 loan program backed by frozen Russian assets, Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal announced.