Zelensky said that he had a telephone conversation with President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen. It agreed to allocate $127 million for Ukraine's gas import needs.
“Today we understand that we are missing about $750 million out of the $2 billion that we talked about,” Zelensky said.
The fact that Ukraine needs approximately €2 billion for additional gas imports was reported by Prime Minister of Ukraine Yulia Sviridenko during the hour of questions to the government on October 24, she was quoted by Ukrinform.
“It will be closed in two ways – internal reserve and external assistance from partners. Internal reserve – we are talking about the reserve fund, from which we actually allocated funds yesterday. And also this is financing the banking sector of Ukraine, the activities of the Naftogaz company. The second part is assistance from our partners through grants and through loans. We are talking about cooperation with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, with the European Investment Bank. Norway is also giving us a grant of 150 million,” noted Sviridenko.
Context
In the fall, the aggressor country of the Russian Federation intensified its attacks on the energy infrastructure of Ukraine.
As of early October, Russian attacks had destroyed 60% of Ukraine's gas production capacity, Bloomberg reported. The Ministry of Energy reported that Ukraine, due to massive Russian air strikes on gas production facilities, will have to increase gas imports by about 30% of the preliminary plan.
