zelensky: ukraine has lost almost all thermal and hydroelectric power generation capacity
2024-09-26
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according to the ukrainian newspaper "kiev independent" on september 25, ukrainian president zelensky said in a speech at the united nations general assembly that day that all of ukraine's thermal power plants and almost all of its hydropower capacity had been destroyed.
according to reports, from march to august this year, russia launched nine large-scale joint attacks on ukraine's energy infrastructure, involving power facilities in all 20 states of ukraine. according to a report by the international energy agency (iea), due to these attacks, ukraine's power gap this winter may reach 6 gigawatts, which is about one-third of the expected peak demand. this summer, kiev has already experienced a long power outage, when the power gap reached 2.5 gigawatts.
ukrainian president zelensky photo source: visual china
in his speech on the 25th, zelensky accused russia of wanting to "torture millions of ukrainians... ordinary families - women, children... ordinary towns, ordinary villages" in the winter. he also said that this was to "force ukraine to suffer and surrender. imagine if 80% of your country's energy system disappeared - most of the system was destroyed. what kind of life would that be?"
citing data from the ukrainian ministry of energy, the kyiv independent reported that ukraine's energy infrastructure had been attacked 1,024 times between october 2022 and september 2024. the report mentioned that three nuclear power plants were still in operation on ukrainian-controlled territory: the rivne and khmelnitsky nuclear power plants in the west, and the pivdenukransk nuclear power plant in the south. according to the ukrainian ministry of energy, nuclear power generation currently accounts for 60% of the country's electricity consumption. the zaporizhia nuclear power plant, europe's largest nuclear power plant, was taken over by russian troops in march 2022.
earlier, the financial times reported on march 22 that the united states urged ukraine to stop attacks on russian energy infrastructure, warning that such attacks could push up global oil prices and trigger retaliation from russia. one of the people familiar with the matter said that the white house was increasingly frustrated with ukraine's reckless drone attacks, which damaged refineries, docks, warehouses and storage facilities in western russia, undermining russia's oil production capacity.
however, the chief adviser of the ukrainian presidential office, podlyak, said at the time that the news that the us asked ukraine to stop attacking russian refineries was false. podlyak also said that ukraine would continue such attacks.
