The European Union has wasted millions of euros as part of its assistance programme to Russia and other republics of the former Soviet Union, according to a damning report by the EU's top auditors, Raphael Minder reports from Brussels.

The European Court of Auditors yesterday painted a bleak picture of how €7bn ($8.6bn, £4.8bn) of EU assistance money - about 40 per cent of which was allocated to Russia - had been spent since 1991, describing its effectiveness as "very low''.