Ukraine calls on NATO countries to speed up aid, Berlin to provide 350 generators to kyiv
Ukraine on Tuesday called on NATO member countries meeting in Bucharest to speed up the delivery of weapons and electrical equipment to help the country ravaged by more than nine months of war to cope with the damage caused to its energy infrastructure by Russian bombing. “Last time I said three words: guns, guns, guns. This time I have three more words: faster, faster and faster”said Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba shortly before a meeting with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg. What are Ukraine’s most pressing needs? Generators and Patriot air defense missiles, he hammered.
The Kremlin’s goal is to“inflict as much pain as possible on Ukrainian civilians to try to break their commitment, their unity in the fight against the Russian invasion”, denounced during the day the Secretary General of the Atlantic Alliance by hosting this two-day meeting of the heads of NATO diplomacy in the huge palace which houses the Romanian Parliament. For the leader of the Alliance, who reiterated the policy of the “open door” of it with regard to Ukraine, “the message from all of us will be that we need to do more” to help Kyiv, including with air defense. “Russia is failing on the battlefield. In response, they go after civilian targets, cities, because they can’t gain territory.”he added. “This tactic of targeting civilian, energy infrastructure is obviously designed to try to get the Ukrainians to submit by freezing them”said British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly. “I don’t think it will succeed”, he added. Concern is growing, however, about the possibility of sustaining these long-term efforts as stocks begin to run out.
A meeting of the enlarged G7, held under the German presidency on the sidelines of NATO, called for mobilization in the face of the energy crisis caused by the war in Ukraine. Arrived Monday evening in Bucharest, the American Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, announced Tuesday financial aid of 53 million dollars (51.24 million euros), which is added to another envelope of 55 million dollars (53.17 million euros) already released for the purchase of generators, in order to help Ukraine. This sum will be used to purchase electrical equipment (mainly transformers), which will be ” rapidly “ delivered to Ukraine, an American source said. In total, the Biden administration has budgeted $1.1 billion (€1 billion) for energy in Ukraine and Moldova. American aid is part of the prospect of an international conference of donors in “support for the Ukrainian civil resistance” which will be held on December 13 in France.
Germany announced on Tuesday that it would provide “more than 350 generators” to Ukraine. Olaf Scholz spoke with Volodymyr Zelensky and told him “assured of additional short-term support”announced in a press release a spokesperson for the German government, specifying that German aid in this area already amounted to 56 million euros so far.
The European Union, for its part, has asked to activate the civil protection mechanism to deliver some 500 generators to Ukraine as well as 2,000 tents adapted to winter conditions, the result of cooperation between seventeen Member States. France has contributed 100 generators, which arrived at the European hub in Suceava, Romania, which will soon be handed over to Ukraine, a French source said.