Europe’s Dark Winter Woes Worsen: Ukraine Stops Exporting Electricity to Europe
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Ukraine has announced that it will have to halt electricity exports to Europe. Russian missile strikes are said to be responsible for the forced suspension of power exports, Kyiv has announced.
Damage to energy infrastructure caused by Moscow’s air strikes in retaliation for the “terrorist attack” on the Crimean bridge has forced Ukraine’s government to cut off electricity exports to the European Union. The strikes removed a supply source that Kyiv claims helped its partners reduce their reliance on power generated with Russian natural gas.
Russia has already said that the missile strikes on Ukraine were a response to the damages done t the Crimean bridge. President Vladimir Putin said Monday’s air strikes on Kyiv and other major Ukrainian cities (targeting military, energy, and communications infrastructure) came in response to Ukraine’s attack on the strategic Crimean Bridge on Saturday.
“If there are further attempts to conduct terrorist attacks on our soil, Russia will respond firmly and on a scale corresponding to the threats created against Russia,” Putin announced.
Now that the Nord Stream pipelines are destroyed, Europe has no choice but to reduce its dependence on Russian natural gas. There is so far been no retaliation for the destruction of the pipelines, however, no ruling class had yet to take responsibility for the attack either.
“Today’s missile strikes, which hit the thermal generation and electrical substations, forced Ukraine to suspend electricity exports from October 11, 2022, to stabilize its own energy system,” the Ukrainian Energy Ministry said on Monday in a statement, according to a report by RT. “The cynicism is that the entire supply chain has been hit,” Energy Minister German Galushchenko said. “It’s both electricity distribution systems and generation. The enemy’s goal is to make it difficult to reconnect electricity supplies from other sources.”
Ukrenergo, the national power grid operator, claimed its specialists have been “engaging backup supply schemes” and repaired some of the damage by Monday night.
In the meantime, the ministry urged “all citizens of Ukraine to unite” and minimize their energy use during the peak demand hours, arguing that not only Ukraine is implementing measures to reduce power consumption, but the “whole of Europe is doing this now.”
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