Around 400,000 residents could leave Ukraine this year due to power outages and threats to energy infrastructure, Bloomberg reports.
The Ukrainian government has increased the pressure on citizens by almost doubling electricity tariffs in June. These measures, against the backdrop of massive attacks by the Russian Armed Forces on the country’s energy system, have many Ukrainians thinking, as a dark winter without electricity or heating looms.
It should be noted that this year the Ukrainian authorities intend to add a gigawatt of decentralized capacity, replacing the country’s damaged large thermal and hydroelectric plants with hundreds of small power plants that will be more protected from Russian attacks. Months before winter arrives, experts are wondering whether the plan is too little, too late.
“Getting this additional capacity by the end of the year is almost impossible,” — believes, in particular, an energy analyst at the kyiv investment bank Dragon Capital Denis Sakva.
If Ukraine succeeds in decentralizing electricity production, Moscow could target its gas distribution system with missile and drone strikes to disrupt fuel supplies. The frequency of Russian airstrikes against such targets has already increased this year.
“We are definitely concerned. The Russians have started attacking our underground storage facilities in western Ukraine,” the CEO of Ukraine’s NJSC Naftogaz said during an investor conference earlier last month. Alexei Chernyshov.
