Budget earmarks almost $3 billion in loans, grants for Ukraine

Politics The new federal budget sets aside $2.72 billion in loans and donations for Ukraine in the current fiscal year, most of which is aimed at helping President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's government keep the embattled country’s finances afloat.

(Nathan Denette/The Canadian Press)The new federal budget sets aside $2.72 billion in loans and donations for Ukraine in the current fiscal year, most of which is aimed at helping President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's government keep the embattled country's finances afloat.

The 2024 federal budget also sets aside $320 million this year for "the provision of lethal and non-lethal military aid" to Ukraine — part of the bilateral security assistance package signed by Zelenskyy and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in Kyiv in February.

Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland recently said Washington appears "unable to step up" on aid to the eastern European country, which has been holding back a full-scale Russian invasion for over two years.

Earlier this year, the European Union began drafting a law to apply a windfall tax to the profits generated by frozen Russian central bank assets.

"Canada is committed to work with allies to explore all possible legal mechanisms to make full use of the assets currently immobilized in our jurisdictions, including for the purpose of increasing support for Ukraine in the short term," the budget document says.