Difficult months ahead, but Ukraine can avoid a complete blackout – DTEK

Several Ukrainian officials have warned that the country will face a harsh winter but can withstand russian missile attacks on its infrastructure.

Source. CNN.

Details. Maksym Tymchenko, CEO of DTEK energy company, expressed confidence that “russians have no chance to plunge Ukraine into darkness”.

However, there were power shortages and electricity transmission problems, he said on Friday at the Kyiv Security Forum.

According to him, in the capital, the company was trying to introduce “rolling controlled blackouts: 3-4 hours of electricity supply, followed by 4 hours break. This situation will continue, we hope, until next week only, if there are no further attacks. But we are prepared for further attacks,” Mr. Tymchenko emphasised.

He pointed out that all six of DTEK's power stations had been attacked, some of them several times. As of Friday, he said, the company has managed to bring them all back to the grid.

“We managed to accumulate enough coal stock for the country, not just for our company. We have enough gas storage to use gas for power generation. So we have enough capacity for the whole country,” Mr. Tymchenko stated.

The problem, though, was with connections and transmission, added the head of DTEK.

“Transformers, sub-stations, high-voltage transformers: these are what we've been in deficit of, and what we appeal to our international partners for. Some of the equipment is already on the way to Ukraine,” he said.

Mayor of Kyiv Vitali Klitschko said that last week Kyiv had faced an almost total blackout.

“There was no heat and water supply. And about 4,000 employees of utility companies worked day and night to restore them,” he said.

Ukraine's Minister of Defence Oleksiy Reznikov said at the forum that the coming months would be difficult.

“The enemy still has significant resources, but there are more and more signs that he needs a pause at any cost,” Mr. Reznikov said.