Russian forces have attacked Ukraine's energy sector over 2,000 times in last three months, Ukrainian PM says
Not a single day has passed without attacks on the Ukrainian energy sector in the last three months; there are many times more of them than last year, but the work carried out under the resilience plans is helping the system to hold up.
Source: Ukrainian Prime Minister Serhii Koretskyi in an interview with the BBC
Details: Koretskyi said that since 16 July, when the reshuffled government began its work, not a single day has passed without attacks on the energy sector. There have already been 2,147 such attacks, which is many times more than last year.
Quote from Koretskyi: "Even before the start of winter, the Russians are trying to destroy key life-support facilities. The volume of work that has been carried out as part of the resilience plans is helping the system to hold up."
Details: He added that "today there is massive, simply massive destruction of power transmission lines".
"The facilities themselves, the transformers themselves can be protected, but, as you understand, these are thousands of kilometres of switchgear, huge 'football pitches'. It is impossible to protect absolutely everything," he explained.
At the same time, there is a large reserve stock of equipment, and repair crews have the ability and capacity to restore everything in the shortest possible time.
"Thanks to the military, Russia is seeing no results on the front. Therefore, it is directing all its aggression and hatred into terror against civilian infrastructure: electricity, heating, and now water," Koretskyi said, stressing that the Russian goal is to exhaust the people.
He noted that the government's strategy remains unchanged: to protect what can be protected as much as possible and to create distributed generation.
"Together with our partners, we are building up sufficient stocks of backup transformers and equipment to quickly replace damaged ones. We are also strengthening the backup power supply for critical facilities, in particular water pumping stations," he noted.
Background:
- Overnight on 18-19 October, Russian strikes damaged more than 10 energy infrastructure facilities, leaving at least 550,000 households without electricity.
- Earlier, Prime Minister Serhii Koretskyi stated that this year Ukraine is significantly better prepared for Russian attacks on the energy sector than last winter.
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