BRUSSELS — Donald Trump has hurled a wrench into one of the most sensitive negotiations currently under way in Europe, potentially derailing efforts to help fund Ukraine to stay in the fight against Russia.

For months European Union officials have been trying — and failing — to work out a way to use around 140 billion of immobilized Russian state assets held largely in Belgium to support Kyiv’s war effort. The cash is desperately needed as Ukraine is at risk of running out of money early next year.

Talks in Brussels are now at an extremely delicate stage, diplomats said, as top officials try to finesse a legal text that would enable the frozen funds to be used for a loan to the Ukrainian government.

But the United States’ new 28-point blueprint for a ceasefire includes a rival idea for using those same assets for American-led reconstruction efforts once a truce has been agreed. The U.S. would take “50 percent” of the profit from this activity, the document said.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned that the new Trump plan confronted his country with one of the most difficult moments in its history: a potential choice between losing its “dignity” and losing “a key partner.”

Multiple EU diplomats and officials said they feared the proposals, from Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff, would wreck their chances of the loan proposal being agreed by the EU’s 27 governments. European leaders had been hoping to finalize the so-called “reparations loan” deal at a crunch summit next month.

A former French official, granted anonymity like others to discuss sensitive matters, said the Witkoff idea “is, of course, scandalous.”

“The Europeans are exhausting themselves trying to find a viable solution to use the assets for the benefit of Ukrainians and Trump wants to profit from them,” the person said. “This proposal is likely to be rejected by everyone.”
Get a shrink

One senior EU official in Brussels scoffed at the idea and noted that whatever he wants, Trump has no power to unfreeze assets held in Europe. An official from an EU government resorted to colorful swearing to express their dismay, while a senior EU politician said: “Witkoff needs to see a psychiatrist.”

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politico.eu - Steve witkoff needs a psychiatrist europeans fume at donald trump plan to profit from frozen russian assets