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Dec. 16 (UPI) — The European Union and Ukraine have signed a $121,855,000 support package for reconstruction of schools damaged by Russia’s war on Ukraine. The EU has also imposed further sanctions against nearly 200 Russians and Russian entities.
In addition, the EU is launching a solidarity campaign for donating school buses to Ukraine.
“Russia’s targeted attacks against civilian infrastructure, especially as winter grips the country, are a deliberate crime against millions of innocent people,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in a statement. “And they are a gross violation of international law. The EU’s top priority is to bring back as soon as possible Ukrainian children back to school.”
She said by early 2023 the EU will deliver school buses to Ukraine to support the rehabilitation of schools “damaged and destroyed by Russia’s brutal war.”
The aid package includes money for humanitarian aid, with portions of the money channeled through the United Nations Office for Project Services and the U.N. Development Program.
“I am grateful to the European Commission, and President Ursula von der Leyen in particular, for supporting the restoration of Ukrainian schools,” Ukraine’s first lady, Olena Zelenska, said in a statement. “Today, less than a third of children in Ukraine have possibility to regularly attend a school. The rest have to study online or in a hybrid format. Due to constant shelling and blackouts, it becomes increasingly difficult.”
The European Commission will work with the Ukrainian government and the Olena Zelenska Foundation to coordinate and deliver the aid.
The new EU sanctions against Russia include the Russian Armed Forces, individual officers, defense industrial companies, members of the Russian State Duma and Federation Council and others.
“This list covers key figures involved in Russia’s brutal and deliberate missile strikes against civilians, in the kidnapping of Ukrainian children to Russia, and in the theft of Ukrainian agricultural products,” the European Commission said in a statement.
The sanctions include “severe export restrictions” on 168 Russian entities closely linked the military-industrial complex. Three more Russian banks were also sanctioned, including a full transaction ban on the Russian Development Bank.
