Estonia allocates €400,000 to support Ukraine in coldest winter for 16 years
Estonia has allocated over €400,000, via the Ministry of Foreign Affairs' humanitarian aid partners, to help Ukrainians, who are living without electricity and hot water during the coldest winter for 16 years.
According to a ministry press release, the support will be used to establish crisis centers, equip evacuation and transit centers and set up winter emergency assistance points. This at a time when Russia continues its attacks on Ukraine's energy infrastructure and has bombed all of its power plants.
"Temperatures in Ukraine are falling to -20C and below. As Estonians, we know what such cold means, and we must help Ukrainians get through the freezing weather without a warm room and without water," said Minister of Foreign Affairs Margus Tsahkna (Eesti 200).
"Our support is being channeled through our strategic humanitarian partners – Estonian NGOs – to ordinary people: small children, the elderly, and citizens in need of special care, whose homes have had neither water nor heating for weeks in the freezing cold, and where the temperature indoors is the same as outside. Thousands of people have had to leave their homes," he said.
"Putin is using the cold and darkness as a weapon against the people of Ukraine, and we must not allow it to change the course of the war. Ukrainians are brave, but bravery alone does not win a war," Tsahkna added.
Estonia is supporting NGO Mondo with €121,980 to establish three mobile crisis centers in residential districts of Kyiv suffering from extensive power cuts.
Each crisis center is expected to support around 120 people per day.
The Estonian Refugee Council (ERC) will also receive €150,000 to support evacuation and transit centers with generators and fuel reserves.
The ERC's latest fundraising campaign has already raised €30,000.
A further €136,122 will be allocated to the Estonian Rescue Board Association to procure equipment for four winter emergency assistance points for rescue workers from the State Emergency Service of Ukraine (SESU).
"Every generator, every repaired cable and every euro donated sends Putin a clear message: Ukraine will not break," Tsahkna said.
More information about the Estonian Refugee Council's campaign, including how to donate, is available here.
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Editor: Michael Cole
