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EU members pledge $16 billion in additional support for Ukraine, Costa says

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EU members pledge $16 billion in additional support for Ukraine, Costa says
President Antonio Costa speaks following a special EU summit on March 6, 2025, in Brussels, Belgium. (Olena Zashko / The Kyiv Independent)

Several EU members have pledged to provide up to 15 billion euros ($16.3 billion) in additional aid for Ukraine, European Council President Antonio Costa said at a summit on March 6.

EU leaders met in Brussels to discuss plans for boosting Europe's defense capabilities and support for Ukraine amid the seismic foreign policy shifts in the U.S. Ukraine's President Volodmyr Zelensky also took part in the meeting.

The summit concluded without additional EU aid packages for Ukraine as the discussed 20-billion-euro tranche ($22 billion) was dropped from the final declaration. Kyiv needs more support now than ever, as the Trump administration has frozen all military assistance flowing to the country.

As any EU-wide assistance package is under threat of being blocked by Hungary's Moscow-friendly leader, Viktor Orban, top EU officials suggested that further aid should be provided through a "coalition of the willing."

"Immediately, member states can increase their support thanks to the increased fiscal space," Costa said at a press conference in Brussels. During the summit, EU leaders unanimously agreed on a new defense initiative that could mobilize up to 800 billion euros ($867 billion) through loans and loosening fiscal rules for government spending.

"Several member states have already announced their pledges up to 15 billion euros. Today, we have also tasked the Council to work urgently on further initiatives to address Ukraine’s pressing military and defense needs," Costa said, without naming the countries.

"This is a tipping point for Europe. And today, we have shown that the European Union is rising to the challenge," the European Council president said.

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Martin Fornusek

Senior News Editor

Martin Fornusek is a news editor at the Kyiv Independent. He has previously worked as a news content editor at the media company Newsmatics and is a contributor to Euromaidan Press. He was also volunteering as an editor and translator at the Czech-language version of Ukraïner. Martin studied at Masaryk University in Brno, Czechia, holding a bachelor's degree in security studies and history and a master's degree in conflict and democracy studies.

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U.S. President Donald Trump's remarks come after the Financial Times (FT) reported, citing undisclosed sources, that he asked President Volodymyr Zelensky whether Kyiv could strike Moscow or St. Petersburg if provided with long-range U.S. weapons.

"The stolen data includes confidential questionnaires of the company's employees, and most importantly, full technical documentation on the production of drones, which was handed over to the relevant specialists of the Ukrainian Defense Forces," a source in Ukraine's military intelligence told the Kyiv Independent.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban called upon the EU to take action against Ukraine's conscription practices in an interview with Origo published on July 15, amid an ongoing dispute with Kyiv over the death of a Ukrainian conscript of Hungarian ethnicity.

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