France turns interest on Russian assets into Ukraine aid
A look back at the French announcement on funding a military aid package from income earned on Russian assets.
What did it mean when France said it would pay for military aid to Ukraine with money generated by Russian assets? On 10 March 2025, the question followed an announcement made a day earlier, on 9 March 2025, by French Armed Forces Minister Sebastien Lecornu: France would use €195 million in interest from Russian assets to fund a military aid package for Ukraine.
The choice of funding source stood out. The package was financed from interest earned on the assets, not from the French defence budget alone. That placed the announcement within the wider debate over how Ukraine's partners could sustain military support.
That debate carried real weight. Later assessments, using the Ukraine Support Tracker, found that by April 2025 Europe had overtaken the United States in total military aid to Ukraine, with €72 billion allocated against €65 billion from the United States. That figure was not available on 10 March 2025, but it shows the scale of the European effort into which the French package fitted.
Earlier analysis had also warned of Europe's burden. In December 2023, the Center for Strategic and International Studies wrote that if the United States stopped sending military aid, European countries would be unable to provide enough to prevent Ukraine's frontline from collapsing. Against that background, a French package funded from Russian-asset income was one of the ways European governments sought to keep aid flowing.
