BUCHAREST: Ukraine looks set to receive more aid from the U.S. and its NATO allies to help Kyiv restore power and heat knocked out by Moscow’s relentless attack on civilian infrastructure.
Foreign ministers from the NATO alliance meet on Tuesday and Wednesday in Bucharest, looking for ways both to keep millions of Ukrainian civilians safe and warm and to sustain Kyiv’s military through the coming winter campaign.
“NATO will continue to stand for Ukraine as long as it takes. We will not back down,” alliance Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said in a speech in Bucharest.
“The main focus is supporting Ukraine and ensuring President (Vladimir Putin) doesn’t win.” U.S. and European officials, briefing ahead of the meeting on condition of anonymity, described packages of aid including cash, electricity transmission equipment and more weapons to fight off drones and replenish diminished ammunition stores. “It is going to be a terrible winter for Ukraine, so we are working to strengthen our support for it to be resilient,” a senior European diplomat said. Russia has been carrying out huge attacks on Ukraine’s electricity transmission and heating infrastructure roughly weekly since October, in what Kyiv and its allies say is a deliberate campaign to harm civilians, a war crime. –Agencies
