WARSAW, Poland (AP) — The European Union has disbursed the first 3 billion-euro ($3.4 billion) tranche of a 90 billion-euro ($101 billion) loan to Ukraine, the country’s prime minister announced Thursday at the opening of a conference on Ukraine’s post-war recovery in Poland.

The conference, attended by key European leaders including German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, is both a fundraising forum and a message to Russia that Ukraine’s Western supporters are in it for a long haul.

“We are forced to innovate to survive and this has become our superpower,” Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko said, adding that Ukraine was grateful for the support promised to her war-battered nation.

European countries vow commitment — and investments — for Ukraine

Von der Leyen reasserted the EU’s financial commitment to Ukraine, just days after the country officially started EU membership negotiations on June 15.

Since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, EU countries have provided 200 billion euros ($225 billion) in economic, financial and military support to Ukraine, and approved 90 billion euros ($101 billion) more over the next two years in the form of an EU support loan, she said.

The EU also will start paying another 6 billion euros ($6.7 billion), a second tranche from the loan dedicated to drone production, “in the coming days,” she added.

In a separate initiative, European leaders meeting in Gdansk said they’re kicking off a European equity fund dedicated to investments in strategic sectors of the Ukrainian economy.

“With an initial public package of up to 220 million euros, we are creating the confidence and the risk-sharing mechanism that private investors need to engage now,” Merz said. The fund originated at last year’s recovery conference in Rome, and is supported by the EU, Germany, Poland, Italy and France.

He said that although public funding alone will never be enough to rebuild Ukraine, “by investing now and committing long-term capital, Europe’s is sending a clear message: we believe in Ukraine’s future within the European family.”

The Ukrainian delegation is planning to sign 160 deals totaling over 10 billion euros ($11.2 billion) during the conference in Gdansk, Svyrydenko said on Thursday.

Ukraine-Poland dispute fails to overshadow the conference

Svyrydenko led the Ukrainian delegation after President Volodymyr Zelenskyy pulled out just days before, following a dispute with Polish President Karol Nawrocki over World War II events that have strained the countries’ relations.

Nawrocki this month stripped Zelenskyy of Poland’s highest state honor, because Zelenskyy named a military unit after a Ukrainian paramilitary organization accused of massacring Poles during the war.

The Ukrainian Insurgent Army, or UPA, fought for Ukrainian independence against both Nazi German and Soviet forces. But it is accused in Poland of wartime killings of tens of thousands of Poles, most in the Nazi-occupied regions of Volhynia and Eastern Galicia, which the Polish state qualifies as genocide.

Zelenskyy has since returned the award to Poland, with other Ukrainian officials also following suit.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said that Zelenskyy’s absence at the conference might help reduce the tensions. Svyrydenko made no reference to the dispute in her speech.

“We can only build the future on the basis of truth, mutual respect and understanding the past,” Tusk said in his speech.

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Associated Press writers Illia Novikov in Kyiv, Ukraine, and Kerstin Sopke in Berlin contributed to this report.

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Follow the AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

Claudia Ciobanu, The Associated Press