KYIV, Ukraine >> The European Union’s top official said on a trip to Kyiv on Friday that Europe would offer Ukraine a loan of 35 billion euros (about $39 billion) backed by frozen Russian assets. European leaders said the loan would move forward initially without contributions from the United States, after talks between U.S. and European officials stalled in recent days.

The official, Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, met with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine to reiterate Europe’s continued support for his country. Her trip came days before Zelenskyy was expected to travel to New York for the U.N. General Assembly.

There, he will present President Joe Biden with a proposal, which has not yet been made public, to bring about the end of Russia’s war in Ukraine. He will also meet with the two candidates seeking to replace Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump.

The loan announced Friday, which would provide Ukraine with a needed infusion of funds without increasing direct aid from the budgets of European countries, is smaller than the $50 billion that the United States and other large Group of 7 economies agreed to provide in June. Washington had intended to contribute $20 billion to $25 billion to the loan, but only under conditions that would have barred an EU review of sanctions against Russia for three years.

Still, the loan announcement will be a relief to Ukraine, which is running out of money for acquiring weapons and for rebuilding damaged energy infrastructure as it heads into another winter at war.

At a news conference with Zelenskyy, von der Leyen said, “We should make Russia pay for the destruction it has caused.” The trip to Kyiv was her eighth visit to the Ukrainian capital since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022.

The plan is to repay the $39 billion loan using interest from $300 billion of Russian central bank assets that were frozen in 2022, though there is a risk that falling rates could decrease the value of the returns on those assets.

EU member states and the European Parliament will need to vote on the loan announced Friday; should the proposal gain the required votes, Brussels intends to release the funds before the end of the year. Jacob Kirkegaard, a Brussels-based senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, said the announcement that the European Union would move forward with the loan signaled that it was rising to the task of possibly becoming the dominant supporter of Ukraine. But by doing so, the bloc was also taking on the risks associated with the loan.

The proposal for a $39 billion loan leaves open the question of to what extent individual European countries might reduce their contributions to Ukraine from their budgets, potentially decreasing the financial impact of the loan.

European and U.S. officials struggled to secure an agreement because of legal questions.