EU to Announce €8 Billion Ukraine Loan Tranche Amid Zelenskyy's Absence and Diplomatic Rift
The EU will announce an €8 billion loan tranche for Ukraine at the Gdańsk Recovery Conference. President Zelenskyy will be absent due to a diplomatic spat with Poland over his honoring of a Ukrainian military unit, exacerbating historical tensions between the allies.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen is expected to announce the first €8 billion tranche of the EU’s €90 billion loan to Kyiv at the Ukraine Recovery Conference in Gdańsk. This financial support targets both Ukraine’s general public budget and its defence sector.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy will be absent from the two-day event, co-hosted by Ukraine and Poland, with Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko representing Kyiv. Zelenskyy's decision follows a diplomatic dispute with Polish President Karol Nawrocki. The disagreement arose after Zelenskyy honored a Ukrainian military unit named after the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), which Poland associates with the 1943-45 massacres of Polish civilians, described by Warsaw as genocide.
In response, Nawrocki revoked Zelenskyy’s Order of the White Eagle, Poland’s highest honor, which Zelenskyy subsequently returned. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, attending an E5 leaders' meeting in Berlin, suggested Zelenskyy's absence might "benefit" the conference by allowing a more substantive discussion. Exhumations of Polish victims in western Ukraine, stalled for years, resumed in April 2025, highlighting the ongoing historical sensitivities between the two wartime allies.