Pete Ross

but they failed to agree on a plan to use frozen Russian assets to back the loan to Ukraine.

Belgium has always opposed the use of these assets on the basis that most are being held in a Brussels-based clearinghouse, leaving them legally exposed to any Russian retaliation.

The European Council President Antonio Costa said the agreement sent a clear message that Europe's support for Kiev would not falter.

Oleksandr Mareshko is the chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee in the Ukrainian parliament and a member of parliament for President Zelensky's Servant of the People party.

This is his reaction to the deal.

So, was this a compromise, or did Ukraine get the money it needed regardless of where it came from?

Alex Ritson spoke to our correspondent James Waterhouse, who's in Brussels.

If you look at it in the sense of a round figure, it is what Ukraine wanted.

This was always a proposal that was agreed by the EU to prop up Ukraine over the next two years.

And that proposal was 90 billion euros.

And Kiev is hoping that other allies like the UK and Canada will plug the rest of an estimated 135 billion euro hole in.

in its national budget.

So in essence, if you consider that it's the money they wanted, a loan they will unlikely ever have to repay, given the chances of Russia paying reparations in the medium to long term future.

As you heard there, it allows Ukraine to keep functioning.

But I know what you're getting at.

I mean, there is a more concerning barometer for Ukraine,

where the donors, its most immediate donors, its neighbours, are clearly more divided on how and even whether to help Ukraine as Russia's invasion continues.

Yes, because this deal only happened because certain nations managed to negotiate their own way out of them.

Yes.

I mean, it was a punchy minority that have changed the course of how this was expected to go.