Will America stop Europe from bailing out Ukraine?
The News Agents
Global
4.1 • 5.4K Ratings
🗓️ 18 December 2025
⏱️ 37 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This week, the head of the British army warned the public that "more families will know what sacrifice for our nation means", given the increasing threats to the UK. European leaders are meeting today to discuss billions of dollars of seized Russian assets that are sitting in a vault in Brussels. Ukraine is desperate to use the money to help it fight two more years of war. Europe is on the brink of saying yes - but America is trying to stop them. Why? And will a war on our doorstep become more likely if we say no?
Later - what is the link between Andrew Tate and Barron Trump? We speak to Megan Twohey, New York Times investigative reporter.
The News Agents is brought to you by HSBC UK - https://www.hsbc.co.uk/
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The Newsagents podcast is brought to you by HSBC UK, opening up a world of opportunity. |
| 0:08.9 | This is a global player original podcast. |
| 0:12.6 | Volodymy Zelensky is in Brussels. |
| 0:15.3 | He cannot understand why Europe won't hand over frozen Russian assets to help him fight the war. |
| 0:22.9 | Just like authorities confiscate money from drug traffickers and take weapons away from terrorists, |
| 0:30.9 | Russia's assets must be used to defend against Russian aggression. |
| 0:35.6 | Well, Moscow's opposed to it, you'd expect that. Hungary's opposed to it. You'd expect that. |
| 0:38.6 | Hungary's opposed to it. |
| 0:40.0 | You'd expect that. |
| 0:41.4 | But why is America siding with Russia? |
| 0:45.0 | Welcome to the newsagents. |
| 0:51.5 | It's John. |
| 0:53.8 | It's Emily. And at the heart of this is a very tangible problem. Ukraine is fast running out of money. |
| 1:02.6 | Keeve needs around $136 billion in the next two years just to fund its defense, to keep it afloat, to keep Russia at bay as far as it can. |
| 1:14.7 | That's according to the European Commission. |
| 1:16.9 | So without new funds coming in by the spring, Ukraine risks going bankrupt. |
| 1:23.7 | It would be unable to pay soldiers, unable to play police. |
| 1:27.1 | It would be unable to function as a country. |
| 1:30.0 | And so on the one hand, this seems childishly simple, |
| 1:34.7 | that if you have the money from the aggressor already sitting frozen in a bank account in Brussels, |
| 1:43.7 | then why on earth don't you just use it to fund the |
| 1:48.4 | country that is fighting it on behalf of many of us, many European countries? And yet, it has got |
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