Attacks on energy supplies: “Russian engineers are helping armed forces”

The United Nations fear a humanitarian catastrophe in Ukraine if the energy infrastructure is largely destroyed in winter. Russia’s targeted attacks have several reasons.

In the villages around the city of Kharkiv, in eastern Ukraine, people are preparing for a cold winter. Many villages there have been without electricity and water for weeks and no longer have gas for heating. “It’s so cold,” little Artem from Kivsharivka complained to an AP reporter. At night he sleeps in his clothes. “Our windows are broken,” says grandmother, Iryna Panchenko. “That’s why we only come here to eat. At night we sleep with the neighbors. Their windows are still intact, it’s a little warmer there.”

Another neighbor, Viktor Polyanytsa, is chopping wood behind the shed for the stove in the kitchen. He’s not afraid of the cold, he says. “I have two legs and two arms. I can go out and find wood to keep us warm.”

“High Risk of Death”

The United Nations fear a humanitarian catastrophe in Ukraine if the country’s energy infrastructure is largely destroyed in the coming winter. Without electricity and heating, many people would likely freeze to death, Denise Brown, coordinator of the United Nations Humanitarian Assistance Program for Ukraine, said in New York on Tuesday. “We are talking about total destruction, loss of life and loss of livelihood as a direct result of the war. I am convinced that many families who have literally nothing left are at high risk of dying.”

Observer: Russians are testing the will to resist

Across the country, hundreds of thousands of people are cut off from electricity and water supplies as a result of the ongoing Russian attacks on so-called critical infrastructure. Not only in the capital Kyiv, but also in numerous other regions of the country.

The city of Schytomyr, just under a two-hour drive west of Kyiv, with around 250,000 inhabitants, was at times completely without electricity and water on Tuesday. And in Donetsk in the east of the country, two thermal power stations were shot at.

Numerous international observers and political analysts assume that Russia wants to use its attacks on Ukraine’s energy supply to carry out psycho-terror. In view of the impending cold winter, the will of the population and the armed forces to resist should be broken.

Power plants from day one target

The targeted attacks on the energy infrastructure may have even greater significance for the war. From day one, power plants and energy supply facilities were targets, said the head of the Ukrenergo power company, Volodymyr Kudrytsky.

“We prepared very carefully for the enemy to attack our critical infrastructure. And it started right on the first day of the invasion.” On February 24, the power grid of Russia and Belarus was disconnected. “It had been planned for a long time, because we want to connect the Ukrainian power grid to the European grid. And just a few hours later, Russian troops began to invade Ukraine,” reports Kudrytsky.

Contracts for connection to the European electricity system

The connection of Ukraine to the European electricity system has been on the political agenda for years – not only in Kyiv, but also in Brussels. The first memorandum on this was signed in 2005. Since then there have been other contracts for this step.

The full integration of the energy markets still faces a number of technical challenges. However, with the connection to Europe, Ukraine’s energy supply would improve and European electricity suppliers would gain access to the Ukrainian market.

According to a study by the Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik in Berlin, Ukraine is almost indispensable for the EU’s goal of making Europe a climate-neutral continent by 2050. According to the plans, the necessary expansion of solar and wind energy systems could take place in the Ukraine and the climate-friendly electricity could then be fed into the continental European grid.

Russia against common energy network

The government in Moscow had been trying to prevent these plans for years and threatened harsh consequences. Kudrytsky expressed his deep disappointment with his former Russian and Belarusian colleagues in the former joint energy network. The targeted attacks on power plants and other facilities would also be carried out with their help. “I think the Russian engineers are helping the Russian armed forces because they know everything about our facilities. In my opinion, they are just as much war criminals as the military.”

Sirens continue to wail in Ukraine every night and every day, warning of air strikes. Defending energy infrastructure is Ukraine’s top priority right now.