DEPUTY ADMINISTRATOR COLEMAN: Thank you so much Ambassador Brink and also thank you Minister Galushchenko. It's really a pleasure for me to be here.
This is my first visit to Ukraine, but as Ambassador Brink mentioned, I had been spending a lot of my time on Ukraine – for more than a year prior to the invasion, really helping get our government ready and get our partners around the world ready for what we feared was coming.
And when Putin made the terrible and tragic mistake on February 24 to further invade Ukraine – bringing so much destruction and misery around the world – he made a terrible decision in so many fronts but in the most important way, he just simply miscalculated on the basic resolve and strength of the Ukrainian people.
People around the world have been inspired watching Ukrainians dig deep and show their resolve, farmers wearing flak jackets to plant their fields, the Ukrainian ballet continuing to perform, and energy workers around the country rebuilding the grid after every unbelievable attack that has occurred trying to break the resolve of the Ukrainian people.
Last fall, USAID announced $55 million to help shore up the energy grid here in Ukraine, and we've also provided over 1,700 generators and tents with warming facilities for people around the country.
But it's really fantastic to be here and see this power generator that I know came all the way from Arizona. A GE, American-made power generator that as the Ambassador mentioned has the capacity to heat up to 100,000 homes.
And pending confirmation from our Congress, we have hundreds of millions of dollars more in resources coming to Ukraine to help repair and strengthen and modernize, and help decentralize the Ukrainian energy grid.
USAID is working closely with our interagency partners, our State Department, our Department of Energy and others, and our Ukrainian partners in all the different ministries here that touch the energy sector to make sure that we are helping to procure around the world the best equipment and the most urgent equipment that we can deliver as quickly as possible.
And I think there's no better reflection of the strength and depth of our partnership and the work that we're doing on energy resiliency here in Ukraine, so thank you. Thank you to the Ukrainian partners and our team here on the ground for making that partnership so successful.