Washington, NATO to offer aid to cold, dark Ukraine

KYIV/BUCHAREST, Nov 29: The United States and its NATO allies will pledge money and equipment for Ukraine on Tuesday to help restore power and heat knocked out by Moscow's relentless missile and drone campaign against civilian infrastructure.

Foreign ministers from the NATO alliance meet on Tuesday and Wednesday in Bucharest, looking for ways both to keep millions of Ukrainian civilians safe and warm, and to sustain Kyiv's military through the coming winter campaign.

"Nato will continue to stand for Ukraine as long as it takes. We will not back down," alliance General-Secretary Jens Stoltenberg said in a speech in Bucharest.

"The main focus is supporting Ukraine and ensuring President (Vladimir Putin) doesn't win."

U.S. and European officials, briefing ahead of the meeting on condition of anonymity, described packages of aid including cash, electricity transmission equipment and more weapons to fight off drones and replenish diminished ammunition stores.

"It is going to be a terrible winter for Ukraine, so we are working to strengthen our support for it to be resilient," a senior European diplomat said.

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.

Moscow says hurting civilians is not its aim but that their suffering will end only if Kyiv accepts its demands.

There are no political talks to end the war. Moscow has annexed Ukrainian territory which it says it will never relinquish; Ukraine says it will fight until it recovers all occupied land.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said he expects new attacks at least as bad as last week's bombardment, the worst yet, which left millions of people with no heat, water or power.

In Kyiv, snow fell and temperatures were hovering around freezing as millions in and around the capital struggled to heat their homes.