Energy minister assesses when Ukraine can ‘stabilize’ power grid
Ukraine will be able to “stabilize” its damaged energy system no earlier than the summer and only if Russia stops its continuous attacks, Ukrainian Energy Minister German Galushchenko has admitted. The minister made the remarks in an interview with Forbes Ukraine published on Thursday.
“The speed of repairs is tied to attacks. If there are no attacks, even taking into account the already damaged [power] generation, we will stabilize the system by summer,” Galushchenko said, refusing to name exactly how many generation figures the country currently lacks.
According to the official, in recent months, the Ukrainian energy system has been subjected to at least nine particularly large-scale missile attacks by Russia. At the same time, Russia continues to strike specific energy facilities using drones and artillery on a daily basis, the minister asserted.
Galushchenko claimed that Russia seeks to cause a complete, country-wide blackout in Ukraine to “drive the society to protests.”
According to Moscow, however, the real goal of the critical infrastructure attacks was to disrupt Ukraine’s war-fighting capability and damage its logistics, which are used to transport troops and their Western-supplied weaponry.
Russia drastically ramped up its strikes against Ukrainian infrastructure in early October in response to repeated Ukrainian sabotage on Russian soil, including the bombing of the Crimean Bridge, which is squarely blamed by Moscow on Kiev’s military intelligence. The incident has been widely cheered by top Ukrainian officials, yet Kiev has denied any involvement in the car bomb blast that heavily damaged the road section of the bridge and killed three civilians.
