Minister acknowledges winter power cuts possible in Ukraine, but impacts should be brief

As Ukraine prepares for possible winter blackouts resulting from Russia's ongoing assaults on its energy infrastructure, Energy Minister German Halushchenko said on national television that any outages would be temporary in nature. 

When asked whether there is a possibility of new blackouts, the official said: "Yes, of course. If, say, there are massive strikes that will really cause significant damage to the power system, [then] blackouts are possible. But we are preparing everything for for them to be of short-term nature."

Halushchenko emphasized that the Ministry of Energy has no illusions that the enemy will attack the power system and that "the winter will be tough."

"Tough not from the point of view of energy, because the system is ready for winter, not from the point of view of generation or transmission of electricity. We are preparing for attacks," the minister said.

The energy minister added that it will be "quite difficult" at this stage to predict the level, scale and impact of attacks on the operation of the energy system.

On October 10, 2022, the Russian military began to strike Ukraine's energy system. However, a full-fledged blackout occurred after another mass missile attack on the power system on November 23, which lasted less than a day.

On September 12, 2023, Shmyhal announced that Ukraine and the allied states had allocated $2.3 billion to the restoration and protection of the energy system.