European Commission delivers further energy support for the winter to Ukrainian people

At a time when temperatures across Ukraine have dropped to below zero, Russian attacks have left millions without reliable access to electricity, central heating and water. To help those most in need, at the conference ‘Standing with the Ukrainian people’ in Paris today, President Ursula von der Leyen made three important announcements: 1) a new EU delivery of urgently needed power generators, 2) the setting up of a rescEU health and energy hub in Poland opened to any third country donors, 3) the donations of energy saving lightbulbs.

Today the President announced that the EU has mobilised around 800 power generators to Ukraine since the start of the Russian invasion.

Latest energy assistance channelled through the EU Civil Protection Mechanism includes:

40 new large generators from the rescEU reserve to provide uninterrupted power to 30 hospitals across the country.
100 small – medium power generators from France. 19 generators from Slovakia, 23 generators from Germany and 4 emergency power systems from Poland as well as 252 transformers from Lithuania.
Furthermore, President von der Leyen announced the Commission will mobilise around €30 million for the purchase of up to 30 million energy saving lightbulbs for Ukraine.

The EU is also currently setting up a new rescEU energy hub in Poland to facilitate the transport and warehousing of donations from third parties and help with their delivery to Ukraine. This is done in cooperation with our G7 partners and can greatly increase supplies of emergency aid to Ukraine.

Overall, the EU’s Emergency Response Coordination Centre has channelled more than 76,677 tonnes of assistance to Ukraine via the EU Civil Protection Mechanism since February and also continues to coordinate medical evacuations of wounded or ill Ukrainians to hospitals across Europe. With weekly flights departing from the EU Medical Evacuations Hub in Poland, over 1600 patients have been successfully transferred to 18 European countries.

The Commission also continues to work closely with the Energy Community to support the Ukrainian energy system. The Ukraine Energy Support Fund has so far collected €32 million to cover the most urgent needs.