Deputy prime minister and economy minister Yulia Svyrydenko will reportedly be in Washington later today to sign the agreement

In Spain, harrowing stories have continued to emerge after much of the Iberian Peninsula was plunged into an hours-long blackout earlier this week.

Jonathan Bernal, a window washer in Madrid, has detailed how he and a co-worker were cleaning the outside windows of a skyscraper when the power went out. For four hours they ended up stranded on hanging scaffolding, some 240 metres above the city.