BRUSSELS, October 26. /TASS/. The EU Council has decided to mobilize 4.9 billion euro from the European Peace Facility, including 4.7 billion to partially reimburse EU countries for their arms supplies to Kiev and 230 million euro to expand the budget of the EU Military Assistance Mission in Support of Ukraine.

"The Council today adopted a set of eight decisions enabling the use of funds for Ukraine under the European Peace Facility (EPF). These decisions allow for the partial reimbursement, through the EPF, of military aid already delivered by member states (since the spring of 2023 - TASS), amounting to a total amount of €4.7 billion. They also provide additional financing for the EU Military Assistance Mission in Support of Ukraine (EUMAM Ukraine), amounting to a total of €230 million," the Council said.

This is the first tranche of aid funding for Kiev from the European Peace Facility that was blocked by Hungary in 2023. The total amount of frozen funds is 6.6 billion euros. Hungary lifted its veto this spring, but the process has stalled due to disagreements over how EU member states will distribute these funds among themselves.

Funds from the European Peace Facility have never been transferred to Ukraine; instead, they were allocated as compensation to EU countries that supplied weapons from their own stockpiles to the Kiev regime. On average, the European Union has compensated for about 40% of the weapons’ cost under this scheme. At the same time, the technical condition of the weapons was not verified. As the Euractiv portal (now Rapporteur) reported, a number of EU countries may have significantly inflated the actual cost of their shipments, making it very profitable to receive compensation for decommissioned weapons.