From Berlin, the Ukrainian president asked for help to repair the energy network and to repel Russian attacks, at the beginning of a series of days of intense diplomacy, in which he will also travel to the G7 summit in Italy and an international conference of peace in Switzerland.
Germany and the UE have promised to help Ukraine a repair and rebuild their energy infrastructureas stated this Tuesday in Berlin by the German Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, and the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen.
In a conference to gather support for Ukraine’s recovery of the destruction caused by Russian aggression, President Zelensky asked this Tuesday in Berlin aidashort term for repair the electrical network of your country and long term investments in its energy system.
Ukraine ha lost the half of its capacity of electricity generation as a result of Russian attacks. Zelensky said that already 9 gigawatts of capacity have been destroyed in missile and drone attacks. Energy consumption last winter was about 18 gigawatts.
Scholz said they would focus on renewable energy and the potential of hydrogenadding that the efforts would be to “rebuild a future EU Member State.” Von der Leyenfor its part, promised aid of 1.9 billion euros for kyivpart of which has been generated from interests derived from Russian assets frozen by the West.
Zelensky speaks before the German Parliament
Zelensky also spoke this Tuesday for the first time before German legislators in the ‘Bundestag‘ in Berlin, which marks his third visit to the German capital since the beginning of the large-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine. Politicians from the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) and the Sahra Wagenknecht alliance were notably absent. Both parties demand an end to arms deliveries in Ukraine.
During his appearance before parliamentarians, Zelensky emphasized the “common interest” of Ukraine and Germany in which Putin loses the war. Facing the peace summit in switzerlandthe Ukrainian president said that they are looking for “give diplomacy a chance and for this we have brought together about 100 countries“.
