Bratislava City to Allocate €120,000 for Purchasing Generators for Kiev

Bratislava, 26 February (TASR) - Slovakia's capital city Bratislava will provide a subsidy of €120,000 for purchasing four diesel generators and 40 portable petrol generators for the Ukrainian capital Kiev as its partner city, Bratislava city council decided on Thursday in response to an urgent request for assistance from Kiev mayor Vitali Klitschko. The subsidy will be granted to the 'People in Peril' non-profit organisation for the 'Light and Heat for Kiev' project. According to an explanatory memorandum, "the capital of our neighbouring country, Kiev, has been facing extensive Russian attacks on its energy infrastructure for several weeks". Bratislava will thus join other European capitals that have allocated funds and are gradually sending aid to long-suffering Ukrainian cities. Simultaneously, this contribution represents symbolic support for the 'Heat for Ukraine' fundraiser in Slovakia, with more than €1 million raised so far. Support for Ukrainian cities has been one of the key values of the Pact of Free Cities, a global network established at the initiative of the mayors of Bratislava, Budapest, Warsaw and Prague. Since the early days of the war in Ukraine, Bratislava has been actively involved in providing in-kind assistance, as well as necessary services and information for refugees; for example, via the Assistance Centre on Bottova Street set up in April 2022, which operated until September 2024. Following up on this model, the LOOM Centre for People of Foreign Origin on Ceska Street has been open since April 2025. In the same vein, the Slovak capital has also been involved in providing in-kind support to Kiev by purchasing humanitarian aid for the most vulnerable groups of the population. In 2023, Kiev received 23 decommissioned buses from the Bratislava Public City Transport Company (DPB). jrg/df