Russian invasion The world's response

EU pays 30 billion per year in interest on Ukraine loan

The EU will pay three billion euros, equivalent to 32 billion kronor, per year in interest on the loan it is taking out to finance Ukraine. This is reported by Politico Europe.

A total of 24 of the EU's 27 member states are financing the loan. At Thursday's summit in Brussels, it was agreed to leave the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia out.

According to the agreement, Ukraine is to repay the loan when the war is over and Russia starts paying repayment support. It does not seem likely that Russia will agree to this, and the EU may therefore be forced to take out new loans or once again try to reach an agreement on using the frozen Russian assets in Europe.

Orbán: Not clear who attacked whom

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán does not want to say that it was Russia that started the Russian war of invasion in Ukraine, reports Politico. He says that the EU justifies its support for Ukraine by portraying it as a small country being attacked, and adds:

– It is not that small. And it is not even clear who attacked whom. In any case, it is a country that has been subjected to violence.

The Prime Minister has previously repeated the Kremlin's claims about the reasons why Russia invaded its neighboring country and, unlike other leaders of EU countries, has continued to have a good relationship with Vladimir Putin.

Editor: Raise an iron curtain between the West and Russia

The EU negotiation on support for Ukraine is still on the agenda of several editorial pages.

We are "in everything but the conventional sense" already at war with Russia. This is the opinion of the editorial staff of Dagens Nyheter, which criticizes the failure to reach an agreement on using the frozen Russian assets in Europe. This shows the problematic division within the Union, they say.

Sydsvenskan's editorial staff, for their part, argues that the EU continues to manage to stand up for Ukraine by instead agreeing to finance the country via joint loans.

"The EU must stand strong – and the money is frozen anyway now, it's not going anywhere," writes the editorial page.

DI's editorial writer PM Nilsson instead writes about security strategies and believes that Sweden should draw up a new one that the US can "understand, agree with and invest in." He imagines an iron curtain against Russia, from the Black Sea to the Arctic Ocean.

It "is a way to strategically conceptualize a defense without having to wait for Ukrainian NATO or EU membership," writes Nilsson.