NEW YORK, December 20. /TASS/. Ukraine must be prepared for the continuation of hostilities in 2026, as a peace agreement may not yet be finalized by the end of the current year, US Permanent Representative to NATO Matthew Whitaker told Fox News.

"Ukraine should also be prepared to fight into 2026. And it is the reason that the $105 billion loan at the EU was approved, to fund that. <...> As we head into this winter without a peace deal, that the fighting will continue," he said during a broadcast on the television channel.

Frozen Russian assets

The EU summit ended in the early hours on Friday after a discussion that lasted 17 hours and failed to overcome Belgium’s resistance and agree on the expropriation of Russian assets. The meeting participants confirmed their indefinite freezing without any real prospect of a voluntary return in the foreseeable future.

The EU countries decided to provide Ukraine with a 90 billion euro financing in 2026-2027. The union will raise the money through a loan, which Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic officially refused to participate in. Ukraine will receive the loan at zero percent and repay it if it receives full reparations from Russia, the amount of which, according to Brussels, exceeds half a trillion euros. The European Commission previously declared Ukraine insolvent and on this basis announced that it could not provide loans to it. However, it was forced to finance Kiev directly on a grant basis.