Russia’s consistent attacks on Ukraine’s energy system have led to the country losing more than nine gigawatts of electricity generation capacity, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denis Shmygal said Tuesday.
“Today our main priority is strengthening our electrical system after the Russian terrorist attacks. The situation is very difficult,” Shmygal wrote on social networks, as quoted by the Spanish agency EFE.
Shmygal said that “more than 9 gigawatts of production capacity” had been lost and that Russia “continues to attack Ukraine’s energy infrastructure.”
In mid-May, Kyiv announced that it had lost eight gigawatts of installed capacity due to Russian bombing.
The head of the Ukrainian government said that the Kyiv authorities are working to obtain additional air defense systems from foreign partners to protect energy infrastructure.
He also said the government is trying to decentralize the power generation system into smaller units and in more places to make it harder for Russia to destroy them in a few attacks.
Since March 22, Russia has carried out successive waves of bombings of Ukrainian power plants, destroying some of Ukraine’s most critical electricity generation infrastructure.
The most recent of these major attacks occurred over the weekend, with more than a hundred missiles and “drones” (unmanned devices) launched at targets in the Zaporozhye (south), Dnepropetrovsk, Kirovograd (center) and Donetsk (east) regions. ) and Ivano-Frankivsk (west).
Ukraine has been forced to introduce planned blackouts across the country to save energy as the system cannot meet all demand.
Russia launched a similar campaign of attacks in the fall of 2022, leaving millions of Ukrainians without power for weeks.
Ukrainian authorities say the series of bombings that began in March this year caused more damage than the campaign in the first year of the war.
Ukraine is asking its Western partners to provide more air defense systems to protect this and other key infrastructure from Russian airstrikes.
Author: Lusa
Source: CM Jornal
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