Belgium demands ironclad guarantees of protection as EU considers Ukraine loan

European leaders in a meeting at the EU summit in Brussels (Geert Vanden Wijngaert/AP)

Belgium has insisted its European Union partners must provide ironclad guarantees that it will be protected from Russian retaliation before it would back a massive loan for Ukraine.

At a high-stakes EU summit in Brussels, the 27-nation bloc’s leaders are set to decide on whether to use tens of billions of euros in frozen Russian assets to underwrite a loan to meet Ukraine’s military and financial needs over the next two years.