The European Union must ensure that the €90 billion worth of loans to be sent to Ukraine, which was agreed upon by its member states earlier in the year, is released and sent to the country, Foreign Minister Constantinos Kombos said on Tuesday.

“We need to make sure that we have the release of the €90bn loan for Ukraine and also for the completion of the 20th sanctions package” on Russia and related actors, he said at the EU’s foreign affairs council (Fac) meeting in Luxembourg.

He then said that Cyprus, in its role as the holder of the Council of the EU’s rotating presidency, will “intensify political work” to this end.

“Ukraine remains a compass in terms of policy orientation for the European Union,” he said.

Thus far, the EU has formulated 19 sanctions packages against Russia since the country invaded Ukraine in 2022, with the most recent of those packages having been unveiled in October last year.

Those sanctions include a full ban on imports of Russian liquefied natural gas (LNG), which will come into effect on January 1 next year for long-term contracts and “within six months” for short-term contracts.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy most recently visited Cyprus in January, saying at the time that “we are working to make as much progress as possible during this period on opening negotiating clusters and on Ukraine’s accession to the European Union”.

Then, he had met his Cypriot counterpart Nikos Christodoulides and said after that meeting that he and Christodoulides had “talked about strengthening sanctions against Russia, which must remain in place as long as Russia’s aggression and occupation continue”.

He is set to speak to this week’s informal European Council summit, which is due to take place in Cyprus, though he will not travel to the island, instead addressing it by videocall.