Russia's attacks on Ukraine's energy infrastructure caused a sharp rise in Ukrainians citing blackouts as a reason for leaving the country over the summer, the United Nations Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine (HRMMU) said in a report published on Sept. 19.
Ukraine's Energy Ministry said that it was one of the largest attacks on energy infrastructure and said that the consequences were still being determined.
Yurii Boiko said that the amount of electricity generated in the system increased due to decreases in weather temperatures and the restoration of some energy-generating facilities.
By October, DTEK, Ukraine's largest private energy company, plans to restore 60-70% of the power generation it lost as a result of Russia’s mass shelling this spring, according to DTEK Executive Director Dmytro Sakharuk.
The government has been providing support to a wide spectrum of consumers, ranging from individual households to businesses, to facilitate additional energy generation, Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said.
Russia has intensified its attacks on Ukrainian energy infrastructure in recent months, leading to lengthy and almost daily interruptions in electricity supply all over Ukraine. In this video, the Kyiv Independent shows how Kyiv lives amid blackouts in the summertime.
The attacks caused a deficit in the country's power supply, requiring additional electricity to be diverted from Poland.
Ukrainians could face up to 20 hours of blackouts a day under a “worst-case” scenario if the country cannot repair and properly defend its energy infrastructure from Russian attacks, Executive Director of Ukraine’s largest privately-owned energy company DTEK Dmytro Sakharuk told the Kyiv Independent in an interview on June
