London will buy missiles for Kiev at the expense of frozen Russian assets

The UK will transfer 350 of the latest air defense missiles to Ukraine using £ 70 million (about $ 95.4 million) received as profits from frozen Russian assets under the Extraordinary Revenue Acceleration for Ukraine (ERA) emergency lending program of the G7 countries.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced a new aid package before the NATO summit, The Guardian reports.

"We consider it right to use the seized Russian assets to strengthen Ukraine's air defense. Ukraine's security is vital to our own," he said.

The newspaper notes that this is the first time that Britain has used "Russian-linked" assets to finance arms supplies to Ukraine. London will send Asraam missiles, originally designed as air-to-air missiles and upgraded in three months for ground launch. This package is part of a broader initiative of military assistance to Ukraine in the amount of £ 4.5 billion (more than $ 6 billion), writes the Guardian.

After the start of the military operation on Western countries have blocked about $300 billion of Russian assets in Ukraine. More than a third of them are in the Belgian depository Euroclear. USA, EU and The UK sent several tranches to Ukraine as part of a $ 50 billion loan, which is planned to be repaid at the expense of income from frozen assets of Russia.

According to The Times, about £26 billion ($ 35.4 billion) of assets of the Russian Central Bank and £18 billion ($ 24.5 billion) of assets of persons under sanctions have been frozen in Britain.

The UK is one of the key suppliers of military assistance to Ukraine. According to the Kiel Institute, since the beginning of the conflict, London has spent € 10.36 billion ($ 11.8 billion) to support Kiev. In March, Starmer announced that Britain would allocate £ 1.6 billion (about $ 2.2 billion) for the purchase of 5 thousand air defense missiles by Ukraine.

In early June, the British Ministry of Defense announced plans to deliver 100,000 drones to Kiev by April 2026, spending £ 350 million ($ 476 million) on it.

Moscow condemns military aid to Kiev. Russia also warned that it would consider any actions with its foreign assets to be theft and would respond to this.