The U.S. to grant $53 million to Ukraine for power transmission

FILE PHOTO: A woman with a dog waits for a bus in a street without electricity after critical civil infrastructure was hit by Russian missile attacks, amid Russia's invasion of Ukraine, in Kyiv, Ukraine November 23, 2022. REUTERS/Valentyn Ogirenko

The United States on Tuesday announced $53 million to support the purchase of power grid equipment to Ukraine to help Kyiv fight Russian attacks targeting its energy infrastructure that left millions in the dark with no heating.

"This equipment will be rapidly delivered to Ukraine on an emergency basis to help Ukrainians persevere through the winter," a State Department statement said, adding that the package would include distribution transformers, circuit breakers, surge arresters among other equipment.

Russia has been carrying out huge attacks on Ukraine's electricity transmission and heating infrastructure roughly weekly since October, in what Kyiv and its allies say is a deliberate campaign to harm civilians, a war crime.

(Reporting by Humeyra Pamuk; Editing by Benoit Van Overstraeten)