Von der Leyen: Half of €4 billion provided to Ukraine by EU on 1 October should go towards drones
The European Union expects that €2 billion out of the €4 billion transferred to Ukraine by the EU on Wednesday 1 October will be invested in drones.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen is convinced that Ukraine should invest €2 billion into drone production.
"If it comes to Ukraine, if we all agree that Ukraine is our first line of defence, we have to step up the military support for Ukraine. This is the reason why today we are disbursing €4 billion for Ukraine," von der Leyen said ahead of the informal European Council summit.
"€2 billion of that will be invested in drones," she specified.
She reiterated that the informal European Council in Copenhagen will discuss two topics: defence and Ukraine.
As European Pravda reported, on 1 October Ukraine received a €4 billion tranche from the EU under the G7 ERA initiative.
The Extraordinary Revenue Acceleration for Ukraine (ERA) mechanism, launched by the G7 member states, provides up to US$50 billion in loans to Ukraine, to be repaid using profits generated from immobilised Russian sovereign assets.
In 2024-2025, the G7 countries and the EU have provided Ukraine with nearly US$28 billion in financing through ERA.
Ukraine received the previous EU macro-financial assistance tranche of €1 billion under the ERA programme on 10 September.
Meanwhile, the EU is considering a new decision on military financing for Ukraine based on frozen Russian assets.