Zelensky urges EU to reach deal on Russia's frozen assets
Newshour
BBC
4.2 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 18 December 2025
⏱️ 48 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky says key parts of the Ukrainian war machine will have to be scaled back unless Europe approves the use of frozen Russian assets to support Kyiv.
Also on the programme: the EU's top court rules that Denmark's 2018 "ghetto law," which relocates residents from minority-heavy areas, could amount to ethnic discrimination; and what could the new documentary about Melania Trump tell us about the American first lady?
(Photo: A woman holds a banner as people demonstrate outside the European Commission in support of using frozen Russian assets to finance Ukraine. Credit: Reuters)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, radio, podcasts. |
| 0:09.5 | Hello and welcome to NewsHour. It's coming to you live in the BBC World Service |
| 0:13.7 | Studios in central London. I'm Tim Franks. Sometimes, and I say this as a former Europe correspondent for the BBC, European Union summits can be a bit of a bore. |
| 0:26.0 | The one underway in Brussels today is anything but. |
| 0:29.9 | The 27 leaders are trying, they've been trying all day. |
| 0:33.5 | Currently, it seems not quite getting there, to agree on a new way to fund Ukraine's attempt |
| 0:39.5 | to stave off the Russian invaders. Flaude Mzilensky has been at EU headquarters to make |
| 0:46.7 | the argument that without tens of billions of dollars right now, his military will run out of gear |
| 0:52.4 | and his troops and other public servants |
| 0:55.3 | won't be paid. |
| 0:57.5 | This was Mr. Zelensky, speaking through a translator. |
| 1:00.7 | Money is needed so that Russia and anybody else in the world does not use these Russian assets |
| 1:08.3 | as a leverage against us. |
| 1:10.4 | We want these assets so that it is not a part of the |
| 1:13.6 | negotiating process and we want this part to support us. We are more confident in the negotiating |
| 1:18.8 | table if we have this instrument. Well, the instrument that he's talking about and the Russian assets |
| 1:25.1 | he was talking about as well, The argument in the EU is all about |
| 1:28.3 | how far frozen Russian assets, frozen in the EU, indeed in Belgium in particular, can be used to |
| 1:36.3 | back a huge loan for Kiev. Donald Tusk is Poland's prime minister. He's arguing strongly for the |
| 1:42.3 | European Union to ignore threats of a |
| 1:44.9 | backlash from Moscow and press ahead with a plan. |
| 1:47.8 | Now we have a simple choice, either money today or blood tomorrow. |
... |
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