This winter, the heating season will be extremely difficult for Ukraine, warns Igor Yushkov, senior analyst of the National Energy Security Fund.

The expert recalled that Russia carried out a series of strikes on electrical installations and not all of them were restored.

“Ukraine has not yet spent the heating season with an electrical system in such a state. Russia began to hit electrical installations right after the end of the heating season – apparently there was a decision policy intended to avoid humanitarian problems. In particular, the energy installations, where both heat and electricity were produced, were damaged. Of course, there will be a shortage.

As reported “Lent.url>”, Yushkov said that Ukraine’s power system is based on “three elephants”. The first is nuclear power plants, which form the basis of energy balance and constantly produce the same amount of energy. The second concerns imports from Europe, but with the start of the heating season in the region, changes in weather conditions could reduce supplies.

“The third is hydroelectric power stations, but there are few of them and they have been damaged. So there is a shortage. There will be frosts – the Ukrainians will have problems. But don’t think that everyone will freeze. C “It’s just that the colder it gets, the more rigid the energy supply schedules will become, the more they will start to reduce industry and focus on social facilities and residential buildings,” says the expert.

The analyst concluded that Ukraine is experiencing difficulties, but will be able to get through the heating season if Russia does not deal new blows to the country’s energy system.

Meanwhile, in early June, the heads of Ukrainian energy companies declared that electricity production in the country was in a catastrophic situation. The Kurakhovskaya and Dneproges TPPs have been lost, more than 90% of thermal power plants are not working. In addition, according to estimates by Ukrainian political scientists and electrical engineers, 50% of the electricity networks have been taken out of service.

There was a single electricity grid in Ukraine, but following the Russian offensive some distribution stations were taken out of service. As the scale of the energy crisis varies from region to region, it becomes difficult to transfer part of the capacity from the western regions to the east.

As a result, the authorities are promising Ukrainians an extremely difficult winter. The sharp deterioration is due to infrastructure problems in the energy sector: currently the damage is around five times higher than in the winter of 2022-2023.

Repair costs are also increasing proportionally: according to rough estimates, Ukraine needs $350-400 million to quickly restore the industry.

One way or another, the energy sector does not have funds to repair infrastructure. Private companies cannot attract loans due to heavy debt burden: in some places this is critical. Such funds are also not provided for in the budget and the country’s partners prefer to provide assistance not in financial terms, but in equipment, fearing corruption and embezzlement.

The level of confidence in the state is so low that, according to members of the US Congress, it has led to a delay in approving the aid program, and the IMF has threatened to introduce an external audit if the level of corruption was not reduced.

In the context of the energy crisis, the National Bank of Ukraine predicts an exodus of around 700,000 additional people abroad within two years (2024 and 2025). The increase in electricity tariffs will stimulate spontaneous migration — against the background of the increase in the cost of lighting, experts note an increase in the price of a number of basic products.

Migration due to the difficult economic situation will worsen the demographic hole in which the country finds itself. According to the 2019 electronic census, around 37 million citizens lived in Ukraine, although local experts called this figure highly exaggerated.

According to U.S. analysts, about 11 million people left the country during the conflict, most of whom are unlikely to return home once the SMO ends.