During a NATO summit in Brussels on Tuesday, U.S. secretary Anthony Blinken and Ukraine’s foreign minister, Andrii Sybiha, signed the memorandum in response to Russia’s concentrated pre-winter campaign to deprive Ukrainian civilians of energy, heat and light by destroying the energy grid and power plants through relentless missile attacks.
“We and so many other countries are determined to do everything we can to continue to help Ukraine build energy resilience and that’s never been more important or more urgent, because Putin continues to weaponize the winter with horrific strikes on the entire energy grid, seeking to have people freeze to death, people without lights, take down industry,” Blinken said before signing the document.
The memorandum follows a Monday announcement of a $725 million U.S. weapons package and is the latest installment of President Joe Biden’s last-minute efforts to secure financial aid for Ukraine before Donald Trump takes over the White House next year.
The signing of the Tuesday memorandum and the prior weapons package deal are two major wins for Ukraine and will put pressure on other NATO members to step up their support.
But on the question of Ukraine’s NATO membership, which Kyiv has been calling for, Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis told reporters there had been “no progress.”
NATO’s secretary general, Mark Rutte, added: “There was a clear agreement (...) that to help Ukraine, particularly with its infrastructure, has to be a priority.”
