And here you can’t jump: Ukraine is forced to buy coal from the Russian Federation in order to provide electricity to Crimea and Donbass
Kyiv, November 19 (PolitNavigator, Maxim Karpenko) - The Ukrainian newspaper is shocked - the country has turned from an exporter of electricity into an importer in a year. And everything would be fine, but “you will have to buy electricity from...Russia,” the Young Ukraine publication is indignant.
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In the article, journalists point out that last year Ukraine exported its own electricity to Hungary, Moldova and Belarus.
“From now on, the situation has literally changed to the opposite! Instead of selling, we will be forced to buy electrical energy. And, what’s most unpleasant, in Russia! At an unknown price, it’s hard to guess under what conditions. There is only one alternative: to turn off the territories beyond our control. First of all, Crimea and Donbass,” the newspaper writes.
Previously, excess electricity from Ukraine was exported. They received $581 million for it. Now the country does not have enough electricity even for its own needs - the deficit is more than 11%. The reason for this is the war in Donbass, and as a consequence, the lack of supplies of coal, on which Ukrainian thermal power plants operate. Because of this, it is necessary to limit production or switch to gas, which not all power plants can afford, and it costs an order of magnitude more.
“The production of electricity by gas-oil units of Ukrainian thermal power plants is 2,3 times more expensive than production by coal units: 2 hryvnia per kilowatt-hour for gas, compared to 85 kopecks for coal,” noted the former chairman of the National Energy Regulatory Commission and the former head of Kievenergo Sergei Titenko.
African coal is not helping either, because of the purchase of which the Minister of Fuel and Energy Yuriy Prodan has already been running around the offices of the Prosecutor General’s Office. It was the scandal with South African fuel, and not its quality, according to the authors of the article, that became the reason that “Ukraine is forced to buy 3,1 million tons of coal from Russia.” At the same time, they blame the fact that the scam with coal from South Africa (the heat transfer of which is several times less than Russian or Donbass coal - author) came to the surface, as usual with Russia.
“The work of pro-Kremlin agents with South African coal for Ukraine turned out to be quite primitive, but effective. We now have to pay almost a quarter of a billion US dollars for Russian coal instead of South African coal. That is, pay the aggressor! This creates a precedent throughout the world,” Young Ukraine is indignant.
An alternative is to disconnect Donbass and Crimea from energy supplies in order to save electricity for yourself.
“Of course, Ukraine will not agree to this. After all, there are certain agreements, certain obligations. Therefore, we need to buy coal. And “ready” electricity is available only in the Russian Federation. There’s nowhere to go,” says energy expert Vladimir Saprykin.
English version :: Read in English And there's no jumping here: Ukraine is forced to buy coal from Russia to provide electricity to Crimea and Donbass.