Zelenskyy's "jubilee" Supreme Commander-in-Chief's Staff meeting to discuss power grid security – senior official

Oleksii Danilov, Secretary of the Ukrainian National Security and Defence Council (NSDC), has said a meeting of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief's Staff will soon be held to discuss protection of Ukraine's power grid security in winter.

Source: Danilov in an interview with Ukrainian Radio

Quote: "This issue is under control.

I'll tell you a little secret: The Ukrainian president has set a task for the next meeting of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief's Staff to hear a report on this matter from the Prime Minister [Denys Shmyhal], Energy Minister [Herman Halushchenko], Deputy Prime Minister [Oleksandr] Kubrakov, [Yurii] Shchyhol (Chief of Ukraine's State Service for Special Communications and Information Protection – ed.) and everybody else involved in this issue.

This subject will be discussed during the next Staff meeting – by the way, it will be the jubilee, the 100th one – which will be held shortly."

Details: This was Danilov's response to whether Ukraine was ready for the winter season of 2023-2024 and how well its power facilities were protected so far.

The NSDC Secretary believes that this year, Russia will again attempt to use attacks on Ukraine's power industry to "get on the nerves" of Ukrainians, although the country is now better prepared to meet these challenges.

Quote: "We are much better prepared now than in February 2022. Our power engineers already have experience of how to do such a complex job.

Keep in mind that this is not a simple task: the territory is large, and it is incredibly challenging to protect it entirely with physical defences. As for air defence, I am working on these issues day and night to boost the number of air defence weapons.

We are not saying we can protect everything, but it will be much better than last year."

Background: Last autumn and winter, the Russian forces regularly and intentionally targeted Ukraine's power facilities, including thermal and hydroelectric power plants (TPPs and HPPs) and substations. As of 22 November 2022, Russia had damaged almost all TPPs and HPPs in Ukraine using missiles. Russia pursued its attacks on Ukraine's power sector until February.

Volodymyr Kudrytskyi, the CEO of Ukrenergo (national energy company), stated that the Ukrainian power grid suffered 40-50% damage during the winter, but 70% of the damaged facilities were operational by the end of May.

The power system is still undergoing recovery. Analysts expect the new season to be more challenging than the previous one, as the power system will not be fully rebuilt.

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