President of Latvia Edgars Rinkēvičs called on Europe to decide on the transfer of about €300bn of frozen sovereign Russian assets to Ukraine.
He said this at the Ukraine: The Road Ahead on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Interfax-Ukraine reports.
"If we really want to change something, we have to make a decision to transfer the €300 billion frozen in Russian assets to Ukraine. I think in this case we would have resolved the issue of support for Ukraine, it would have sent a very clear message to Russia, and it would have also shown how we can get Russia to the negotiating table," Rinkēvičs said.
He noted that currently "we are not even close to any real discussion of a peace agreement" and that Russia does not want to negotiate.
The Latvian president called for continued support for Ukraine with military, economic and financial assistance, as well as for tougher sanctions against Russia.
At the same time, he noted that what exactly the mechanism of a peace agreement would be, "this is a big question".
"But I think that before we start talking about it, there are at least two principles that we need to take into account: Ukraine has to play an important role in this, and Europe has to be part of this discussion," the Latvian president said.
- On 10 January, Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal announced that Ukraine's state budget had received €3 billion under the ERA initiative. This is the first tranche of funds from the European Union secured by the proceeds of Russian frozen assets.
- At the end of last year, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that in January 2025, specific financial mechanisms should be put in place to ensure that Russia's frozen assets help Ukraine.