A group of EU countries is pushing Brussels to revive a stalled plan to use frozen Russian assets to finance Ukraine, as Kyiv faces a growing wartime budget shortfall. Sweden, the Netherlands, Spain and Poland are among the countries urging the European Commission to restart work on a proposed “reparations loan” and report on possible legal and technical ways to overcome Belgium’s opposition, the Financial Times reported Thursday, citing four people familiar with the document.JOIN US ON TELEGRAMFollow our coverage of the war on the @Kyivpost_official. The plan collapsed in December after Belgium objected. Almost all of the €210 billion in Russian assets frozen in Europe are held at Euroclear, a Brussels-based securities depository. Instead, the EU agreed to provide Ukraine with a €90 billion loan backed by the bloc’s budget. EU governments also pledged to keep working on a separate reparations loan based on cash balances linked to the frozen Russian assets. But little has changed since then, according to one FT source. The renewed push comes as Ukraine faces mounting financial pressure after bringing forward spending to sustain its military campaign. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Monday that the Defense Ministry faces a €23.1 billion funding gap that needs to be covered to keep the war effort going. Ukraine shifted spending originally planned for the second half of the year into the first six months, helping fund a major campaign of medium- and long-range strikes against Russian military positions, logistics hubs and supply routes, including those serving occupied Crimea.