(Meduza) The winter ahead Russia has destroyed half of Ukraine’s energy infrastructure. What does that mean for the upcoming heating season? - In March 2024, the Russian military began its largest aerial attack on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure yet, disabling about half of the country’s power generating capacity. While many of the affected facilities will take years to repair, winter is just months away, and Russia’s attacks show no sign of stopping.
- Russia’s widespread assault on Ukraine’s energy system began on March 22. That day, according to the Ukrainian Air Force, Russian troops launched 63 attack drones and 88 missiles of various kinds. The Ukrainian authorities reported that the attack was the largest on the country’s energy infrastructure since the start of the war, with more than 10 power facilities targeted, including the Dnipro Hydroelectric Station in the Zaporizhzhia region. In June, Russia carried out another attack against the plant, disabling it completely; restoring it is expected to take years.
- Since then, Russia has continued to launch regular strikes against Ukrainian energy facilities. Its tactics have changed since the full-scale war’s first winter: while Russian forces previously targeted electrical substations using cruise missiles and kamikaze drones, their new approach is to target large thermal and electrical power plants with an expanded arsenal that includes Iskander and Kinzhal missiles.
- Russia has destroyed 80 percent of Ukraine’s thermal power generation capacity and about a third of its hydroelectric power generation capacity, totaling about 9 GW of capacity, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on June 11. Last winter, the country’s peak energy demand was about 18 GW.
- The Ukrainian authorities plan to take a range of measures to compensate for the country’s lost capacity, Ukrainian energy market expert Hennadiy Riabtsev told iStories. To start, they’ll work to repair as many of the damaged facilities as possible before the start of the heating season. “There are facilities that can be restored, and this work has already begun,” Riabtsev said.
Ucraina-Kazakhstan: (Guardian) Popular Kazakh opposition figure in hospital after being shot in Kyiv - A Kazkah opposition figure and prominent blogger with more than 1 million subscribers on YouTube has been seriously wounded in an attempted killing in Kyiv.
- Aydos Sadykov, who was granted asylum in Ukraine in 2014, was shot near his home. His wife, Natalia Sadykova, wrote on social media: “Today in Kyiv, near his own house, an assassination attempt was made on Aydos Sadykov’s life.”
- Kyiv officials said an investigation had been launched, adding: “According to preliminary information, an unknown person with a gun ran up to the car where the victim and his wife were, shot the man, and then fled.”
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