EU countries agree to release long-stalled €6.6 billion in military aid for Ukraine

European Union countries have agreed to release a €6.6 billion programme of military aid for Ukraine that had stalled since spring 2023, when Hungary imposed a controversial veto that paralysed the initiative.

The agreement at the political level was reached on Friday during a meeting of the Political and Security Committee in Brussels.

"That's good news for Ukraine and bad news for Russia," High Representative Kaja Kallas wrote on social media, announcing the news.

"Moscow's hybrid attacks try to intimidate Europe into scaling back its support for Ukraine. Europe is doing the opposite."

The so-called European Peace Facility (EPF) was designed to partially reimburse weapons and ammunition that member states donate to Ukraine.

In the early years of the war, the EPF was considered one of the bloc's central lines of assistance and was regularly topped up with fresh money.

But in May 2023, Hungary, under then-Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, slapped a veto that stopped the scheme dead in its tracks.

Budapest complained about Kyiv's decision to add OTP Bank, Hungary's largest commercial bank, to its list of "international sponsors of war". The name-shaming catalogue was discontinued in 2024 after pushback from Western allies.

Still, Hungary kept its veto in place, angering other capitals. The EPF eventually fell off the radar as Brussels set up new assistance programmes.

The deadlock was broken only this year when Orbán lost the parliamentary elections in April, and Prime Minister Péter Magyar came to power. Since then, member states have been negotiating the terms for the release of the €6.6 billion.