European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said Saturday ahead of next week’s Ukraine-EU summit that Ukraine receives unconditional support from the EU bloc and that the country must resist Russian attacks to protect European values. This is reported by Reuters and Agerpres.

Head of the European Commission, Ursula von der LeyenPhoto: Kenzo TRIBOUILLARD / AFP / Profimedia

“We are with Ukraine, without any ifs or buts,” Ursula von der Leyen said in a speech at an event of her party, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), in Düsseldorf, Germany.

Ukraine is “fighting for our common values, fighting for respect for international law and the principles of democracy, and therefore Ukraine must win this war,” she said.

Von der Leyen and her fellow European commissioners are planning a Ukraine-EU summit on February 3.

“Putin thought he could blackmail us, but Germany quickly found other sources”

At the same time, she advocated Germany’s transition to renewable energy sources, for the benefit of the climate and the reduction of Moscow’s income, reports the German agency DPA.

“There can be no return to dependence on Russian fossil fuels under any circumstances,” Ursula von der Leyen said in the same speech.

“It’s a generational goal that we have to solve,” she insisted.

Ursula von der Leyen, a member of the CDU, spoke at her party’s convention in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, an industrial powerhouse home to Cologne, Dusseldorf and Dortmund.

According to her, this western German state has all the prerequisites to emerge stronger from this transformation to clean technologies.

But the fight against climate change cannot be approached at the expense of the economy, the head of the European Commission wanted to emphasize.

Russian President Vladimir Putin “thought he could blackmail us with our dependence on Russian oil, coal and gas,” but Germany quickly found other sources, Ursula von der Leyen said.

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