International conference pledges €1bn in aid to Ukraine

An international conference organised by France raised more than €1 billion in emergency aid to help Ukraine survive the winter, foreign minister Catherine Colonna announced.

Ms Colonna stressed that the donations are “new commitments, thanks to the holding of this conference. It is aid, or gifts in kind. It is not loans.”

Similar conferences were held earlier this year in Lugano, Warsaw, and Berlin, but the Paris conference took account of Russia’s targeting of Ukraine’s energy infrastructure since October.

The conference was attended by representatives of 46 countries and 24 international organisations. “We cannot leave the Ukrainians alone facing winter, facing their aggressor,” Ms Colonna said.

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The French foreign minister also announced the establishment of a new platform to co-ordinate civil aid for Ukraine. The so-called “Paris mechanism”, which will be managed by the EU commission, will enable donors to see what Ukraine needs, and what others have already pledged.

“Our country will not sink into darkness,” said Ukrainian prime minister Denys Shmygal, who attended the conference along Ukraine’s first lady, Olena Zelenska. “The whole of the civilised world is supporting Ukraine”.

Mr Shmygal called Russian invasion forces “an army of torturers” and said that Ukrainian troops “have already liberated more than half the territory taken by the Russians.”

The largest portion of the aid promised on Tuesday will shore up Ukraine’s energy sector, which has been particularly hard hit by Russian airstrikes. The breakdown of the new pledges is €415 million for energy, €38 million for food, €25 million for water, €22 million for transportation and €17 million for health. Nearly €500 million in remaining funds have not yet been attributed, Ms Colonna said.

Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the EU Commission, promised to spend €30 million on 30 million LED light bulbs “to bring light to Ukraine in its darkest hours.” LED bulbs “are 88 per cent more efficient than old generation bulbs,” Ms von der Leyen said. “They could save up to 1 gigawatt of electricity, which is equivalent to the annual production of a nuclear power plant.”

In his opening remarks, president Emmanuel Macron said that by retaking the southern city of Kherson in mid-November, Ukrainian forces “showed the inanity of the sham referendums which Russia organised” to annex four regions.

Since Ukraine regained the advantage on the ground, Mr Macron continued, “Russia has opted for a cynical strategy of destroying civilian infrastructure, to bring Ukraine to its knees ... with a clear objective: in response to military defeats, sow terror among civilians. Try to break the rear lines, since they cannot hold the front lines.”

Mr Macron’s seemingly inconsistent policy regarding the Russian invasion of Ukraine has troubled Kyiv and his European and US partners as well as French critics.

On travelling to Moscow two weeks before the war started last February, Mr Macron said he received assurances from Vladimir Putin that he would not attack Ukraine and would withdraw his troops from Belarus.

When Russian atrocities were discovered in newly liberated towns northwest of Kyiv in late March, US President Joe Biden called Mr Putin a “butcher” and a “war criminal”. Mr Macron said that Russians and Ukrainians were “brother peoples”.

Mr Macron’s rhetorical question on TF1 television on December 3rd prompted an outcry. “What guarantees are we prepared to give Russia for its own security, the day she comes to the negotiating table?” he asked. He seemed to support Russian arguments when he added, “An essential point is the fear of Nato at the gates, the deployment of weapons that could threaten Russia.”

Yet the following day, Mr Macron told the US television station CBS, “Yes,” Mr Putin “should be tried for war crimes”.

The tougher Macron was in evidence on Tuesday. Speaking of Russian airstrikes on Ukraine’s infrastructure he said, “Russia openly admits that these strikes are intended only to break the resistance of the Ukrainian people. They constitute war crimes which shall not go unpunished.”

A second, bilateral conference was held at the French finance ministry on Tuesday afternoon, between close to 700 French businesses and Ukrainian officials, to discuss reconstruction contracts.

The World Bank estimated in September that the war had already cost Ukraine $350 billion. A much higher estimate is expected at the beginning of the new year.

Anna Bjerde of the World Bank told the Agence France Presse that reconstruction has begun in the west, north and even certain parts of eastern Ukraine, but that the perception of risk is high and businesses need to be reassured.

France and Ukraine signed €100 million in contracts on Tuesday, for the repair of more than 150km of Ukrainian railways, the provision of 25 prefabricated bridges and the delivery of seeds to the Ukrainian agricultural sector.

France and Ukraine also signed a “technological and digital roadmap” for the creation of a “Franco-Ukrainian start-up fund”.