More than £1 billion worth of military support for Ukraine has been delivered using proceeds from immobilised Russian assets, the UK Defence Journal understands.
The announcement was made by Defence Secretary John Healey during a visit to Kyiv on 3 September 2025.
According to the Ministry of Defence, the funding has enabled the purchase of “hundreds of thousands of rounds of artillery ammunition, hundreds of air defence missiles, spare parts, and new support contracts to help maintain and repair [Ukraine’s] equipment and vehicles.”
The aid is being financed through a £2.26 billion loan provided to Ukraine via the Extraordinary Revenue Acceleration fund, which is being repaid using proceeds from frozen Russian assets.
Mr Healey also co-chaired a Coalition of the Willing virtual meeting alongside representatives from more than 30 countries. Discussions focused on military contributions to a potential multinational force that could be deployed to Ukraine in the event of a peace deal. He stated that the UK is “reviewing readiness levels of UK Armed Forces and accelerating funding to be ready for any deployment to Ukraine.”
The Ministry of Defence listed the equipment provided by the UK in the last 50 days as including:
- 4.7 million rounds of small arms ammunition
- 60,000 artillery shells, rockets, and missiles
- More than 2,500 drones
- Over 200 electronic warfare systems
- 100 light weapons
- 30 vehicles
- Counter-drone and air defence equipment
Mr Healey said: “The UK is stepping up our military support to help Ukraine defend itself in today’s fight against Putin’s illegal invasion, while working hard to secure peace tomorrow through the Coalition of the Willing. More than £1 billion of military support for Ukraine has now been paid for by immobilised Russian assets, while we have accelerated deliveries of vital kit and equipment over the last 50 days into the hands of Ukrainian warfighters.”
He added: “We are also deepening and expanding our cooperation with defence industry and learning valuable lessons from the battlefield. On my fifth visit to Ukraine, it was an honour to meet Minister Shmyhal to stress our continued unity for Ukraine – both from the UK and across the Coalition of the Willing.”
The Defence Secretary also highlighted closer industrial cooperation between the UK and Ukraine, which builds on the “100-year partnership” agreement signed earlier this year.
The announcement coincided with the Foreign Secretary unveiling new sanctions targeting Russian officials accused of involvement in the deportation and indoctrination of Ukrainian children. According to UK officials, more than 19,500 children have been forcibly transferred to Russia or Russian-occupied territories since the start of the war.
That gives an idea of the volume of Russian wealth booked in London before the war…
£25 billion seized by the UK, that’s targeted seizure. Not sure how strict they are in definition but I’d imagine there’s billions more from Russian interests still left in London.
“It’s a legitimate football club and I’m no longer Putin’s bff” wasn’t enough to be exempt.
If they had clamped down faster and not let all the money leave before applying the sanctions then this would probably be an order of magnitude larger.
Just take the lot already – it’s been over 3 years. If there is no mechanism for seizing funds from an unprovoked invader then the laws need to be changed, and if they’re working on this how it can take so long is baffling – it’s not like the Swiss have it locked in the vaults of Moria, it’s in London.
Just consistent weakness. All the efforts are great, but no real ‘move’ has been made from Europe other than to spike the Urainian guns to appease the dictator of essentially a developing world economy who enjoys shaking his semi-dubious nukes. Send a signal that tells Ivan we’re all in for the long run.
There’s no point in seizing russian money, just leave it where it is, let the interest build up then use that to support Ukraine then repeat the process
If one does this, all dictators, mobs, « questionable » regimes withdraw their money from the city; not sure you want this.
international theft, it’s that simple
I was wondering about the ethics of this. Isn’t it “blood money” of a sorts”? Freeze it yes, but use it? Not sure. Isn’t it “theft” too? Maybe use just the interest? Not sure about that either. Putin-Mevedev will be barking mad someone is raiding his piggy bank. It’s kind of getting a “fighting kitty” as reparations for Ukraine. Hope it translates to pushing the Russian forces back and out of Ukraine.
*their
it clearly is theft, despite the best efforts of the wests lawyers to manufacture a justification, but the bottom line is, if the west uses other peoples money for their political/military aims, then other people will withdraw their money from the west, leaving the west significantly poorer, unintended consequences our leaders are simply unable to be cognisant of
Yes Putin and his oligarch friends stole all that money from the Russian people and stashed it in the UK, that was theft. Now can be used to stop them stealing another countries wealth. Preventing international theft by using the proceeds of international theft..it’s ironic really.
so what your saying is we can all just classify money as stolen if it suits our political/miltary purposes and proceed accordingly, so where does that leave the west’s ‘rules based order’, and supposed moral superiority, it like to keep blathering about
do you udnerstand now ?
Ted you do understand the rules based order is a broken fiction it only works if everyone is willing to accept them.. china, India, Brazil and Russia don’t accept the rules based order..it has broken. In truth it was fatality broken by the west when the west went completely tonto over the twin trade towers and “ waged a world war” it’s final death was when the western powers refused to even enforce it to protect another liberal democracy in 2014.
What we have now is a multi polar world which is at war and only power matters and a nations willingness to engage in all forms of warfare to protect itself, its interests and its allies.
So yes we take everything from Russia we can, because Russia would do the same to us and our allies in an instant.. the rules based order was a premise based on the writings of Fukuyama, who felt the west had won and all governments would in time naturally transition to liberal democracies and free trade economies… the rules based order was a western creation that facilitated this amazing transformation of the world. The rest of the world was never keen and the actions of the west after the 9/11 cemented that dislike and the fact the west would only follow the rules based order when it suited, its actions after 2014 just showed its weakness and inability to even enforce the rules based order..trying to pay lip service to that order now is simply a slow suicide for the west and its time to leave the delusion behind and get back to something that work like the Reagan doctrine ( for those of us who are old that’s how the west won the Cold War) which would essentially dictate the west take all the money and dump it into defending Ukraine.
As you can see I don’t actually believe in any such nonsense as a rules based order.. I believe in power pure and simple, the nations that have it dictate how the world is run.. pure and simple, it’s always been the case and likely alway will be unless human beings Change profoundly.
my comment was about you criticising putin while still supporting the wests response to russia, (which is based on their support for a rules based system), by breaking the rules
do you understand now ?
The thing is morality is utterly irrelevant in geopolitics, there is your interest, shared interest and your enemies interests.. my personal morality is that anyone who starts a war that kills innocent people is a Kunt, but apart from randomly killing innocents I have no issue with any nation doing what it needs to do to promote its own interests.. but “let them also means let me” and I think the UK government should do anything it needs to do to promote and protect the interests of the UK.. but I also believe in enlightened self interest which is working with other like minded nations and free markets.. but some universal global order is just BS. I don’t have an issue with Russia not following the global Order I have an personal issue with Russia because it invades nations and kills innocents, but most importantly and geostrategicly how are nation deals with Russia because it is our nation’s enemy and working against our interests it’s our governments duty to harm Russia in any way it can get away with without harming our own interest.
So India’s does not follow the global order.. I don’t have an issue with India because it not an enemy of the UK… I don’t like the morality of many of the gulf states but as they are not enemies I have no issues with their actions… If Russia had not directly attacked the UK and tried to destabilise western nations I would have no issue with it.. as it is Russia has an aggressively expansionist near abroad foreign policy that directly impacts on the UK and NATO so we should do everything we can short of starting a war to intervene and prevent Russia gaining ground.. because they are our enemy.. morally or some world order is irrelevant..
ok, i thought you were trying to make a relevant point to my opening comment, but i see your on here just to blather
my error
Whatever