Russia causes the worst energy crisis in Ukraine in more than two years of war

“It is the new reality for our daily lives in the years to come.” This is how the Ukrainian Prime Minister, Denis Shmihal, expressed himself forcefully on June 4. This new reality is living 10 hours a day without electricity, the daily average of last week without electricity supply in every home in kyiv or Dnipro. In another city, Odessa, in the south, there were neighborhoods that were without electricity for 20 hours. For this week, the operator Ukrenergo estimates at least six hours a day without supply throughout the country. Russian air forces have destroyed more than half of Ukraine’s electricity generation capacity. Politicians, companies in the sector and experts assure that the situation will get worse, and will predictably become dramatic next winter.

Ukraine already faced a similar situation between the fall of 2022 and January 2023, when Russia launched its first offensive against the country’s energy sector, but the magnitude of the damage caused in the 2024 attacks is much greater. Dixi, the leading consultancy firm for the Ukrainian energy industry, estimated in a report dated May 28 that electricity generation capacity had fallen to 52%, with thermal power plants being the most affected by the Russian bombings. It should be added that Russia occupies the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, the largest in Europe and which provided half of Ukraine’s atomic electricity generation. Representatives of the Ukrainian Government confirmed toFinancial Timesthat the country had gone from generating 55 gigawatts before the invasion to the current 20. Dixi lowers the number to 18.3 gigawatts. This spring alone, Russian missiles have taken out plants that produced nine gigawatts of electricity, according to Shmihal.

The mild weather of spring and summer, in addition to the many hours of daylight, allow citizens to avoid for the moment the looming problem: the lack of electrical power in the cold months for heating, hot water and electricity systems. to illuminate homes. “Being pessimistic, the situation will worsen and in the fall there will be more severe power outages, we have to prepare even for days in which we only have four hours of electricity,” he explained to the media on May 29. TelegraphOlga Kosharna, expert at the Ukrainian Nuclear Center.

Companies in the sector confirm that repairing plants disabled in Russian bombings takes years. Serhii Nagorniak, representative of the National Energy and Housing Committee, explained on June 6 in the state news that the forecasts indicate that when temperatures fall below 10 degrees, the population must be aware that they will surely have 10 hours a day without electricity supply. .

The electricity rate has increased by 64%

Companies and neighborhood communities that can afford it are investing in diesel for generators, which are once again an uncomfortable sound that accompanies every street in Ukraine. The impact on the citizen’s pocket goes further. Starting this June, the electricity rate has increased by 64%, from 2.64 hryvnias per kilowatt hour (Kwh) to 4.32 hryvnias (from 6 to 10 euro cents). Days before the Council of Ministers on May 30, it was leaked that the increase would be 80%. But the reaction in the media and on social networks showed that the measure was highly unpopular at a time when the authorities must deal with enormous unrest due to the mandatory recruitment process underway and which must incorporate hundreds of thousands into the army. of civilians.

Dixi informs this newspaper that its estimates in 2023 indicated that the average monthly consumption per household in Ukraine was 155Kwh – in Spain it is 270Kwh, according to Red Eléctrica Española. In this average case, the monthly bill would rise from 9.3 euros to 15.5 euros. The Statistics Service of Ukraine indicates that the average monthly salary in the country was equivalent to 438 euros at the end of last year. The World Bank estimated that in 2022 alone, the year the invasion began, the poverty rate in Ukraine went from 5.5% to 24% of the population.

There is no alternative to raising rates, justify the Government and companies in the sector. The data proves them right. Companies face sky-high costs to rebuild the power grid, and Ukraine is increasingly dependent on electricity imports from the European Union.

The energy crisis is an issue that adds even more pressure to President Volodymyr Zelensky. Oleksander Kubrakov was dismissed last May as Minister of Infrastructure without official explanation and despite being one of the members of the Government most respected by citizens. The Ukrainian press assumed that Kubrakov was used as a scapegoat by the president. The then minister was subjected on April 26 in the Rada – the Parliament, where Zelensky’s party has an absolute majority – to more than an hour of questioning by deputies who reproached him for not having better fortified the power plants, specifically the Tripilska thermal plant, the main one in the Kiev region, which was destroyed in an attack in April. Kubrakov replied that anti-aircraft defenses are not his responsibility.

Mustafa Nayyem, a popular pro-European activist in Ukraine, resigned this Monday as head of the Office of Infrastructure Reconstruction and Development, accusing the Government of not providing enough support to his department. In a harsh statement, Nayyem added that his organization has done everything possible to protect the electrical grid, but that essential resources are expressly blocked and he fears that his work and that of his team “will be discredited in the future.” in public”.

This year, Ukraine has suffered a growing deficit of anti-aircraft ammunition, especially American Patriot missiles, which has been visible in a lower rate of interception of Russian projectiles by the Air Force and the greater ease of the invader in reaching strategic objectives such as power plants and substations. The critical situation has forced countries such as Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States to redouble the delivery of more anti-aircraft systems.

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