US to release emergency aid for Ukraine energy infrastructure, According to senior US officials, the US will likely announce “substantial” financial aid to Ukraine on Tuesday to assist it in repairing the harm caused by Russian attacks on its energy infrastructure. One senior official told journalists on Monday, speaking on the condition of anonymity and without providing further information, that the assistance, which will be described by Secretary of State Antony Blinken on the fringes of a NATO meeting in the Romanian capital Bucharest, “is substantial and it is not the end.”
US to release emergency aid for Ukraine energy infrastructure
He did point out that the Biden administration had set aside $1.1 billion for energy expenditures in Moldova and Ukraine. He noted that it comes before an international donors’ conference on support for the Ukrainian civic resistance, which will take place on December 13 in France. According to data supplied by Kyiv, a Russian campaign of missile strikes against Ukraine’s electricity infrastructure has destroyed between 25 and 30 percent of the grid. “These substantial transformer stations have been the focus of Russian attacks. They are stations for high-voltage transformers “the US official claimed that the move was intended to disrupt the entire energy network, from the point of production to the point of distribution.
NATO foreign ministers are meeting Tuesday and Wednesday in Bucharest where the alliance’s support for Ukraine since the Russian invasion will be discussed. Germany, which currently chairs the G7, has convened a meeting Tuesday afternoon on the sidelines of the NATO gathering to discuss the energy crisis caused by the war in Ukraine.
The United States will call on the other member countries to strengthen their aid in this area, according to a US official. It will also be an opportunity to highlight the “remarkable cohesion and unity that is still there among all the allies” since the start of the war, assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs Karen Donfried told reporters on Monday.
Romania, as well as neighboring Moldova, has been hard hit by the war, and around two million people fleeing Ukraine have passed through the country. Bucharest currently hosts nearly 80,000 refugees, according to figures cited by Washington. Besides the war in Ukraine, the NATO ministers will take stock of progress in the accession of Finland and Sweden, already ratified by 28 of the 30 member countries but which remains suspended awaiting the green light from Turkey and Hungary.
They will also talk about the mounting danger that China poses. This conversation was started during the NATO summit in June in Madrid and, in the words of Donfried, “is not about NATO going to China; it is actually reflecting the challenges of the PRC having come to Europe.” He cited the technology challenge in particular.
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