Ukraine’s Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said the country will have to prioritize power supplies as it grapples with an energy crisis.
“The first priority is critical infrastructure, especially water and heating facilities and hospitals,” Shmyhal told a government meeting. “The second priority is the military-industrial complex – facilities serving national defense. The principle of ‘everything for the front line’ remains unchanged.”
The third priority, he said, is businesses that produce essential goods — such as bakeries and dairies. The residential sector ranked fourth.
Volodymyr Kudrytskyi, chief executive of state power utility Ukrenergo, said repairs were continuing after the last wave of Russian missile strikes on Monday.
Substations and power plants in southern Ukraine were damaged, Kudrytskyi said.
“Several power plants were forced to stop generating power after being damaged. Now we are working gradually to restore the power generation of thermal power plants to the level it was on the eve of the last attack.”
Since October 10, more than 1,000 heavy missiles and drones have been fired at energy infrastructure, Kudrytskyi said. The main difficulties in electricity supply are currently in the Odessa, Kherson and Kharkov regions.
Recently, nuclear power generation has met more than half of Ukraine’s needs, but Kudrytskyi said the country needs other types of energy generation.
“There is not a thermal power plant in Ukraine that has not been damaged by the attack,” he said. “Similarly, almost all hydroelectric plants have suffered some damage and limited capacity.”
He said he hoped the country would be able to transition to a planned blackout in the next few days if the repairs went ahead. Much of Ukraine has also suffered emergency power outages in recent weeks.
Energy Minister Herman Halushchenko said Russia was expected to target more infrastructure development and energy supplies could also be affected by severe frost.
“Ukraine has received electrical equipment worth millions of euros. Our task today is not only to use this equipment for rapid restoration work, but also to form a stockpile of equipment that may be urgently needed after the next shelling,” he said.