KYIV (Reuters) – European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said on Friday she had arrived in Ukraine’s capital Kyiv to discuss Europe’s support, winter preparedness, defence and progress on the G7 loans.
“My 8th visit to Kyiv comes as the heating season starts soon, and Russia keeps targeting energy infrastructure,” von der Leyen said on the X social network.
Von der Leyen said on Thursday that the sum of 160 million euros from the proceeds of frozen Russian assets would be allocated to meet Ukraine’s urgent humanitarian needs for this winter.
Russia has knocked out about 9 gigawatts (GW) of Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, which von der Leyen said was the “power equivalent of the three Baltic states”.
She also said that the EU aimed to restore 2.5 GW of power generating capacity and would increase exports to supply 2 GW of electricity to Ukraine.
Von der Leyen will meet Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and other officials.
(Reporting by Pavel Polityuk; Editing by Jacqueline Wong and Michael Perry)
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