Attacks on the energy sector: European Solidarity explains what the government must do immediately

The critical energy situation caused by missile attacks by the aggressor state requires the Ukrainian authorities to take swift and effective action, which should have been taken long ago.

This was stated by Oleh Sinyutka, a member of parliament from the European Solidarity faction, after the briefing.

European Solidarity believes there are three key issues that must be addressed immediately. Members of parliament are initiating a corresponding Verkhovna Rada resolution on urgent action to protect the energy sector.

“The first thing we need to do is invest in diversified power generation sources. The second issue is protecting transformer substations. There aren’t many of them in Ukraine. Fewer than 250, which are key and need protection from Moscow’s attacks,” Sinyutka noted. He also noted that after the full-scale invasion began, when the Kremlin’s tactic of destroying critical infrastructure became apparent, the authorities failed to complete substation protection projects.

“Funds were invested, shelter facilities were completed at 20-30-40%, but these facilities are not protected in any way today from Moscow’s destruction of transformer substations,” says Oleg Sinyutka.

Third, we need to invest in a reserve of necessary equipment for transformer substations. We understand that the construction of a single transformer substation takes 5 to 8 months. We understand that there are practically no transformer substations left in Europe or anywhere else that Ukraine could simply import and use as a backup in the event of a Moscow attack. Therefore, building a reserve of transformer substations is a necessary step to maintain adequate capacity for restoring the damaged Moscow transformer substation,” Sinyutka believes.

European Solidarity believes that these issues cannot be scattered among a bunch of “headquarters”; they must be resolved by a single coordinating center.

“We have many headquarters, many committees. There are those from the Office of the President and the Ministry of Energy. But we need a single center that would negotiate with our partners, because the actual cost of protecting substations isn’t astronomical—between 3 and 3.5 billion euros. Considering that our partners provided Ukraine with 95 billion euros in aid last year, Ukraine could have received and effectively used the funds within one year,” Oleh Synyutka asserts.

European Solidarity is initiating a resolution in the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine. “We believe that the Ukrainian parliament must immediately urge the executive branch to take retaliatory action and compel it to take steps to mitigate losses from Moscow’s attacks on energy facilities,” the MP explains.

• The first is to allocate the necessary funds from the budget’s Reserve Fund in order to adequately protect the generating capacity that remains in Ukraine today.
• The second is to help those cities that are currently forced to use additional fuel to operate critical infrastructure facilities.
• Third, create a state reserve of transformer substations that, in the event of an attack on Moscow, could enable our power companies to quickly carry out repairs and restore power supply.

“We need to act very quickly and professionally. Unfortunately, the weather conditions were not ideal. Therefore, at the next parliamentary session, we will demand that the Verkhovna Rada adopt the necessary resolution and that the executive branch implement the actions they are, unfortunately, significantly late in taking,” the MP concluded.