Pete Ross

You know, clearly Belgium was not exercising brinkmanship.

I mean, Bart de Weaver, the prime minister, was clearly under domestic pressure to not cave.

There were concerns here that Brussels would be liable to repay Russia.

And given how this is

currently illegal under international law to raid frozen assets in this way.

And then you have the more Russian-friendly countries like Hungary, like Slovakia, like Czechia now, where there's now a populist government.

They have removed themselves completely from this loan for Ukraine because they have been completely reluctant to give Kyiv more money.

So

I think Volodymyr Zelensky knows that Europe is increasingly divided on how to help him.

But he has the money he wants.

And now he can once again pivot to these continued U.S.-led peace efforts and crucially to trying to keep Washington on the side in that endeavor.

He can now pivot to trying to secure security guarantees and trying to work out just how a peace deal can be conjured up, one that Kiev can believe in.

James Waterhouse who was speaking to Alex Ritson.

Just hours after the EU's decision, Russia's President Putin used his annual end-of-the-year television press conference to claim that Ukraine is losing on the battlefield and retreating.

Mr Putin showed no sign that he was willing to compromise on his war aims, despite President Donald Trump's push for a deal to end the conflict by Christmas.

The Russian president said the EU's plan to funnel frozen Russian assets to Ukraine was daylight robbery, and he blamed the EU for starting the war.

Vitaly Shevchenko is Russia editor for BBC Monitoring.

He explained what President Putin said about the EU's decision to continue funding Ukraine.

I'm sure he was pleased to see that the EU had failed to use frozen Russian money to help Ukraine.

So essentially what we're talking about is money borrowed by European nations to help Ukraine.