Index – Abroad – Russia’s war in Ukraine – Index’s Saturday news summary

Russia tried to destroy the Ukrainian energy system piece by piece and achieved tangible success. However, Ukraine is saved from power outages by the energy supply from Europe and the extensive network of autonomous energy supply systems. The French newspaper Le Monde writes about this, which Unian inspected.

Listing the missile and drone strikes of the past few weeks, the paper notes that, unlike the fall and winter bombings of 2022-2023, the aggressor is now targeting not only the distribution network, but also the power plants themselves.

The goal of the Russians remains the same as in the winter of 2022. But now they are using a different strategy. They are trying to destroy our system piece by piece

– said Maria Caturian, communications director of the state-owned service provider Ukrenergo.

Power distribution infrastructure has its own protections—concrete blocks, sandbags, and sometimes iron mesh to deter drones.

But this protection does not protect it from ballistic missiles

– says Volodymyr Omelchenko, an energy expert at the Razumkov Analytical Center.

Despite the Russian strikes, the energy system continues to provide power to most of Ukraine. An important factor in this is electricity imports from allied countries. “If we were not integrated into the European energy system, I think there would be more blackouts in the bombed regions,” Caturian admits.

In addition, autonomous energy sources are also used to keep social and other infrastructures stable. In Kharkiv, for example, sensitive facilities such as hospitals or fire stations already have their own small thermal power plants of modular construction, provided by international donors.

At the same time, as they note, the streets of Kharkiv during power outages are filled with the hum of small, gasoline-powered generators set up in front of restaurants and shops. However, Volodymyr Omelchenko, an employee of the Razumkov Center, believes that the country’s energy shortage will only increase from July to next winter. In his opinion, if Ukraine does not get additional air defense systems to protect it from Russian attacks, then by next winter millions of Ukrainians will have to leave some cities in the south and east.

According to earlier reports, Ukraine may once again introduce a blackout schedule. Such a decision is made when the balance in the energy system fails to be maintained in the energy sector. This opinion was expressed by the director of the DTEK company, Dmitro Saharuk.

In light of this, Energy Minister German Galushchenko urged not to believe the predictions of “experts”. According to him, no one knows exactly how much electricity production Ukraine will have in winter.