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Good morning. It's Tuesday the 24th of February and this is the Brussels Playbook podcast.

The vibe in Brussels today is frustration as the EU again finds that one of its members, Hungary, is blocking what it wants to do.

That's our main story today, Hungary blocking Russian sanctions and threatening to block a 90 billion euro loan to Ukraine.

And it comes on the day that European leaders are in Kiev, marking four years since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Also on the podcast today, we talk about aging EU buildings,

which are urgently in need of repair. I'm Ian Wishart, Politico's senior EU politics editor,

and you'll know if you tuned in yesterday, that Zoya

is on Route de Keeve with Ursula von der Leyen and Antonio Costa, the presidents of the European

Commission and Council, and we'll catch up with Zoya shortly. But with me in the studio is

Catherine Carlson, our senior finance reporter. Hi, Katie. Hi, Ian. Fresh from watching Florence on the

machine last night in Antwerp. How was it? I don't know if I am that fresh, really. But it was great. It was

iconic. Very good. Well, it's obviously a sad day for Ukraine today as it marks the fourth

anniversary of the full-scale invasion.

And yesterday was a difficult day for the EU again, as it saw a breakdown once more in consensus.

Not for the first time, this was because of Hungary, which yesterday blocked the latest round, the 20th package of sanctions on Russia, and is also threatening to block the 90 billion

euro loan to Ukraine

that the EU leaders thought they'd sorted out in December. Where does this all leave us, do you think?

Well, I think that's the question that's going to be on everybody's lips at the moment.

...