The EU will continue to increase its humanitarian assistance to Ukraine, primarily in the critical energy sector, in the face of Russia’s systematic destruction of all vital civilian infrastructure in the middle of winter.
The President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, gave her assurance, on Thursday 2 February in Kyiv following her bilateral talks with the Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelensky, and ahead of the meeting between the College of Commissioners (16 European Commissioners are in Kyiv) and the Ukrainian government.
“We are delivering equipment to keep the Ukrainian grid functioning and we are making sure that electricity is flowing through the grid, despite the attacks”, Ms von der Leyen told a press conference.
“From this week on, indeed, the LED light bulbs are available to Ukrainian citizens at the post office. These are the first batches of the 30 million LED bulbs we promised”, she said, stressing that this target, announced at the Paris international conference ‘Solidarity with the Ukrainian People’ will be surpassed (see EUROPE 13083/32).
Alongside her, Mr Zelensky expressed his gratitude “for this EU-funded programme” which has already enabled “the delivery of five million light bulbs to Ukraine”.
Ms von der Leyen also announced the delivery of an additional 2,400 electrical generators, “on top of the 3,000 already delivered since the beginning of the war”.
In addition, she promised to make available “over €150 million to purchase vital energy equipment“ under the Energy Community’s Ukraine Energy Support Fund, together with the EU Member States of the Energy Community. (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)