Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen announced on Oct. 22 that the United States and its partners in the Group of Seven (G7) nations are closing in on a final plan to lend as much as $50 billion to Ukraine, which is fighting a Russian invasion.
The G7 nations—the United States, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the UK—reached a tentative plan in June to provide $50 billion in new loans to Ukraine using frozen Russian assets as collateral.
The U.S. contribution to this loan plan is expected to be about $20 billion.
“We’re very close to finalizing America’s portion of this $50 billion loan package,” Yellen said at a news conference kicking off the International Monetary Fund and World Bank annual meetings.
The United States has already appropriated about $175 billion in taxpayer funding for Ukraine-related spending since 2022, making it Kyiv’s largest financial backer throughout the war.
Yellen insisted that Russian assets would secure the loan and that the American taxpaying public would not bear the costs for this latest measure of support for Ukraine.
The majority of the planned loan would come from the European states.
Yellen acknowledged that the European Union must renew the sanctions freezing the Russian assets under their control every six months.
Still, she appeared to downplay concerns that this periodic renewal requirement could disrupt European participation in the loan plan, saying it would be “unthinkable” for the EU not to keep Russian assets frozen while the war in Ukraine rages on.
She noted that Russian assets have been locked away under EU control since 2014 after Russian forces seized Crimea.
Yellen said the United States has asked for “some modest strengthening” of assurances that Russian assets held by the EU will help underwrite the loan to Ukraine but that she feels confident “that this is a secure loan that will be serviced by Russian assets, by Russia, and not by American taxpayers.”
The legislative body said the final EU contribution to the Ukrainian loan plan could be lower, depending on what the non-EU G7 members contribute.
Yellen said the United States continues to track Russian efforts to evade the existing sanctions.
She said the United States is also preparing to unveil “strong new sanctions” as early as next week, aimed at third-party countries “supplying Russia with critical inputs for its military.”
The treasury secretary didn’t say which entities would be targeted in this forthcoming round of sanctions.
The Nov. 5 U.S. elections could determine the degree of additional U.S. support for Ukraine.
Vice President Kamala Harris has signaled she would continue the current U.S. course on Ukraine if elected president.
Former President Donald Trump, who is seeking to retake the White House for the Republicans, has shown more reluctance to keep funding the Ukrainian war effort and has signaled he would speed along negotiations for an end to the war.
