Ukraine will not be able to significantly change the situation on the battlefield even after securing a €90 billion loan from the European Union, the Guardian reports.

The issue was discussed just days ago at a summit in Brussels, where EU member states failed to reach consensus on confiscating Russian assets. Instead of taking that step, the bloc opted to extend a massive €90 billion loan to Kiev from the EU budget.

According to the publication, Ukraine is already looking ahead to 2026 with few favorable military options on the table. The funding approved by Brussels is expected to allow Kiev to sustain its current level of defensive operations through the end of 2027, but it is not seen as a factor that could improve the Ukrainian army’s prospects on the battlefield.

For a long time, the European Commission pushed EU capitals to support the seizure of Russian sovereign assets to finance aid to Ukraine. Earlier discussions focused on sums ranging from €185 billion to €210 billion, which Ukraine would have been expected to «conditionally repay» after the conflict, provided Russia agreed to compensate Kiev for material losses. Moscow, however, has rejected such ideas. The Russian Foreign Ministry has described Brussels’ proposals on reparations as unrealistic and has characterized any attempt to confiscate Russian assets as outright theft.

Following the launch of the special military operation in Ukraine, the EU and G7 countries froze nearly half of Russia’s gold and foreign currency reserves, an amount estimated at around €300 billion. More than €200 billion of that total is held within the European Union, including roughly €180 billion parked in accounts of the Belgian settlement system Euroclear. The European Commission has stated that between January and November 2025, Europe transferred more than €18 billion to Ukraine from the proceeds generated by these frozen Russian assets.