Ukraine is going through this heating season calmly - Galushchenko
Kyiv • UNN
Ukraine's energy system remains stable during the heating season, despite Russian attacks and previous damage to facilities, Energy Minister Galushchenko says.
Ukraine's energy system is demonstrating its resilience and is going through the current heating season steadily. However, Russia may resort to energy terror and systematic attacks on Ukrainian energy facilities. Ukrainian Energy Minister Herman Halushchenko said this in an interview with a telethon quoted by the Ministry of Energy, UNN reports.
We are enduring and passing. Half of the winter has already passed and the system has really shown its resilience. Only natural disasters and massive enemy attacks can critically affect the system. There is no danger of outages for other reasons
Galushchenko reminded that in 2023, the largest repair campaign was carried out at Ukraine's energy facilities, which significantly strengthened the power system after enemy attacks.
"As of the end of last spring, up to 50% of the power grid was affected by the strikes. It was therefore important to recover as much as possible. We carried out scheduled repairs, but it was important to restore the lost generation, which was significantly damaged. We set a goal to restore 1.7 GW in the system before the start of the winter maintenance period, and 2.2 GW have already been restored. We are going through this heating season smoothly," he emphasized.
The Minister noted that, in addition to repairs, Ukrainian power engineers have implemented a program of passive protection of power facilities, which provides for special structures to protect critical components at power generation and transmission facilities.
"But the best defense for the energy sector is air defense systems," Galushchenko added.
