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Hello and welcome to NewsHour.
It's coming to you live from the BBC World Service Studios in central London.
I'm Tim Franks.
Sometimes, and I say this as a former Europe correspondent for the BBC,
European Union summits can be a bit of a bore.
The one underway in Brussels today is anything but.
The 27 leaders are trying, they've been trying all day.
Currently it seems not quite getting there to agree on a new way to fund Ukraine's attempt to stave off the Russian invaders.
Vladimir Zelensky has been at EU headquarters.
to make the argument that without tens of billions of dollars right now his military will run out of gear and his troops and other public servants won't be paid.
This was Mr Zelensky speaking through a translator.
Money is needed so that Russia and anybody else in the world does not use these Russian assets as a leverage against us.
We want these assets.
so that it is not a part of the negotiating process and we want this part to support us.
We are more confident in the negotiating table if we have this instrument.
Well, the instrument that he's talking about and the Russian assets he was talking about as well.
The argument in the EU is all about how far frozen Russian assets, frozen in the EU,
indeed in Belgium in particular, can be used to back a huge loan for Kiev.