A top European Union official unveiled Wednesday a plan to cap the revenues of electricity producing companies that are making extraordinary profits due to the war in Ukraine and climate change, saying the proposal could raise $140 billion to help people hit by spiraling energy prices.

“These companies are making revenues they never accounted for, they never even dreamt of,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen told EU lawmakers in Strasbourg, France.

“In our social market economy, profits are OK, they are good. But in these times it is wrong to receive extraordinary record revenues and profits benefitting from war and on the back of consumers. In these times, profits must be shared and channeled to those who need it the most,” she said.

“Our proposal will raise more than 140 billion euros ($140 billion) for member states to cushion the blow directly,” von der Leyen said in a “State of the European Union” address to the EU assembly.

With winter approaching, the 27 EU member countries are struggling to contain an energy crisis that could lead to rolling blackouts, shuttered factories and a deep recession. Russia has already cut gas supplies partially or entirely to 13 member countries.

Europe has also been hit by a drought said by experts to be the worst in 500 years.

Von der Leyen, dressed in a blue top and yellow jacket in Ukraine’s national colors, also said that the 27-nation bloc’s electricity market must be reformed to properly tackle the energy-price hike crisis that is hurting European businesses and households.

She said that a “deep and comprehensive reform of the electricity market” is required to reduce the influence of natural gas on the way that prices are set. Natural gas is used to power industry, heat homes and offices, and generate electricity.

Even before Russia started its war against Ukraine, many EU member states had been calling for a thorough and structural reform of the bloc’s energy market because they believe that the influence of gas in setting wholesale electricity prices is disproportionate.

“The current electricity market design ... is not doing justice to consumers anymore,” von der Leyen said.

She also announced that she would be traveling to Kyiv later on Wednesday.

Von der Leyen said in her State of the European Union address that the bloc would come to the aid of Ukraine by opening its seamless single market more to Ukrainian products and said she would “discuss all this with President (Volodymyr) Zelenskyy.”

Von der Leyen's trip symbolize the EU's increasing opposition to Russia's actions, which she called a war of “autocracy against democracy,” pushed by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“And I stand here with the conviction that with the necessary courage and necessary solidarity, Putin will fail and Europe will prevail,” she told the plenary of the European parliament in Strasbourg, France.

As Ukraine is pushing Russian troops back in the east with a lightning fast counteroffensive, von der Leyen took heart. “We have seen in the last days the bravery of Ukrainians paying off,” she said.

At the same time, she claimed there were increasing indications that Russia was suffering ever more from EU and other international sanctions — and certainly more that some critics of Western sanctions acknowledge.

“Russia’s financial sector is on life support. We have cut off three-quarters of Russia’s banking sector from international markets,” she said, adding that almost 1,000 companies had left Russia.

She said car production fell by three-quarters compared to last year and that the national airline Aeroflot was forced to ground planes

because of lack of spare parts. “Russia’s industry is in tatters,” she sai.

The EU has already committed billions in aid to Ukraine since the Feb. 24 invasion by Russia. Von der Leyen announced Wednesday that the bloc will provide 100 million euros to build up schools destroyed during the invasion.