The United States is expected to announce “substantial” financial assistance to Ukraine on Tuesday to help it deal with the damage Russia has caused to its energy infrastructure, on the sidelines of a NATO meeting in Romania, said senior US officials on Monday.
This aid, which will be detailed by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who arrived in Bucharest on Monday evening, “will be substantial and it is not over”, one of the senior officials told reporters, speaking under the on condition of anonymity, refusing to give further details or the precise amount. However, he recalled that the Biden administration had budgeted US$1.1 billion for energy in Ukraine and Moldova.
It 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, he underlined.
Russia embarked in early October on a campaign of massive missile strikes targeting energy infrastructure across Ukraine. According to figures cited by the Ukrainian government, between 25 and 30% of this infrastructure was damaged.
“What the Russians are doing is specifically targeting high-voltage transformer stations” and not just the power plants themselves, in order to disrupt the entire chain from production to distribution, explained the American official.
NATO meeting in Bucharest
NATO foreign ministers are meeting on Tuesday and Wednesday in the Romanian capital where the Atlantic Alliance’s support for Ukraine since the Russian invasion on February 24 will be heavily discussed.
Germany, which chairs the G7, for its part convened a meeting on the sidelines of NATO on Tuesday afternoon on the energy crisis caused by the war in Ukraine, during which the United States will call on other countries to strengthen their aid in this area, according to the American diplomat.
It will also be an opportunity to highlight the “remarkable cohesion and unity” of the Atlantic Alliance since the start of the war in Ukraine, Karen Donfried, Under-Secretary of State for European Affairs, told journalists on Monday.
Romania, as well as neighboring Moldova, has been hard hit by the war and some 2 million people have passed through there fleeing Ukraine. Bucharest currently hosts nearly 80,000 refugees, according to figures cited by Washington.
In addition to the war in Ukraine, NATO ministers will take stock of the accession of Finland and Sweden, already ratified by 28 of the 30 member countries but which remains suspended on the green light from Turkey and Hungary, and they will discuss the growing threat posed by China.
This discussion, launched at the NATO summit last June in Madrid, around the Asian giant “does not mean that NATO seeks to extend to China, but it reflects the challenge posed by China in Europe said Ms. Donfried, citing in particular the technological challenge.