> The project, underway since the end of 2023, is focused on the renovation and energy upgrade of a five-storey, 60-apartment block. [..] Heat pumps and solar energy now supply a large residential building in full, a first for Ukraine. Böhling urges: “Solutions like this should be prioritised over gas heating in EU-funded reconstruction.”

Not the first. I don't think some people realise this, but Ukraine is a country with highly-modernised, strong, and well spread-out industrial base. This is why it took the invaders three whole years to seriously damage our CHP infrastructure to the point it cannot be repaired in a timely manner. And most new apartment blocks are built with heat pumps, geothermal anyway. Some smaller ones (such as the 5-story one they're taking about) were being retrofitted by housing cooperatives due to favourable economics of it. We are not third-world; most existing apartment blocks in all major cities are largely reliant on vast, redundant CHP infrastructure for power distribution and centralised heating. THAT is a solved problem.

What we need is more air defense platforms and replacement parts that we cannot easily manufacture, in numbers.

after decades of destroying nuclear, German energy independence and thus pegging German energy sourcing to Russian pipelines, resulting in the geopolitical mess we and Ukraine are in – to have the gall to even pretend they're doing any good here...