Austria allocates €8 million in humanitarian aid for Ukraine and Moldova

The Austrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has announced the allocation of €8 million in humanitarian aid for Ukraine and Moldova.

Minister Alexander Schallenberg said that Tuesday, 19 November, marks 1,000 days since Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. 

"We woke up in a completely different world 1,000 days ago. A world in which war has returned to Europe," he stated.  

Schallenberg stressed that Austria has been firmly on the side of the Ukrainian people since day one, and on the eve of the third wartime winter, humanitarian aid is being increased by another €8 million.

He noted that €5 million of this amount would be allocated to the humanitarian mine-clearance project of the UN World Food Programme. It is aimed at restoring agricultural production in Ukraine.

Another €3 million will go to the International Committee of the Red Cross, UNICEF and the United Nations Population Fund to provide humanitarian assistance in Ukraine and Moldova. 

At the end of October, Austria handed over 10 buses to Ukraine, which were received by Marhanets hromada in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast [a hromada is an administrative unit designating a village, several villages, or a town, and their adjacent territories – ed.].

On 18 November, EU top diplomat Josep Borrell said that the EU had been too slow to make decisions on supporting Ukraine and that countries needed to learn to act faster.