Hungary’s Viktor Orbán will lump European taxpayers with an even bigger bill for support to Ukraine if he forces the EU to lift restrictions on €210bn of frozen Russian assets, Estonia’s foreign minister has warned.

Margus Tsahkna told the Financial Times that blocking the renewal of EU sanctions — a threat Orbán has repeatedly made but never acted on previously — would leave G7 and EU governments on the hook for multibillion-euro loans made to Kyiv that were backed by Russian assets.

The EU and G7 — which includes the US, Canada, Japan, France, Italy, Germany and the UK — last year used profits arising from about €260bn of frozen assets worldwide to underpin a €50bn loan to Ukraine. If the assets are unfrozen, the EU and the US would each be liable for €20bn of the loan, while the rest would fall on other G7 members.