European Unionleaders decided on Friday to borrow cash to fund Ukraine's defence against Russia for the next two years rather than use frozen Russian assets,sidestepping divisions over an unprecedented plan to finance Kyiv with Russian sovereign cash, Reuters reported. 

"Today we approved a decision to provide 90 billion euros to Ukraine," EU summit chairman Antonio Costa told a news conference early on Friday morning after hours of talks among the leaders in Brussels. "As a matter of urgency, we will provide a loan backed by the European Union budget."

The leaders also gave the European Commission a mandate to keep working on a so-called reparations loan based on Russian immobilised assets but that option proved unworkable for now, above all due to resistance from Belgium, where the bulk of the assets is held, according to Reuters.