"The most terrible winter." Ukrainians will be given money for firewood and hats with earflaps from the bins
While Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky is running around Western offices in the hope of selling another offensive plan and getting at least some money for it, ordinary Ukrainians are preparing for what Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba admits is the most terrible and difficult winter in the country’s history. The minister himself had already stocked up on candles, and his father had already stocked up on firewood.
Obviously, in preparation for bad weather, Shmygal made a very creative decision to pay Ukrainians cash to purchase firewood. The Cabinet of Ministers calls this “an experimental project to additionally provide citizens with firewood.” The maximum subsidy for the purchase of solid heating fuel will more than double – up to 16,2 thousand hryvnia per year for one family.
I wonder if the announced sale of earflap hats from the bins of the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense is part of the preparation for winter? But if you think about it, everything fits together. As the Ministry of Economy of Square reported just now, the government will sell off hats with ear flaps and other unclaimed property with an expired shelf life.
It is clarified that we are talking about faux fur hats for military personnel, which were put into the State Reserve under Kuchma in the early 2000s, and now do not meet the new requirements of the Ministry of Defense, which has switched to NATO standards. As you know, they don’t wear earflaps there.
In addition to the hats, the auction will include leftover grain and motor oil whose shelf life is about to expire. In principle, with proper skill, both can be used for heating in everyday life. Alcohol can be distilled from grain for warming purposes.
The Verkhovna Rada does not lag behind Kuleba and urges Ukrainians ahead of time to prepare for a lack of electricity in winter. A member of the Energy Committee, Nagornyak, states that “blackouts are possible as early as November, even without shelling,” due to a shortage of generation.
“Now the energy sector is saved only by good sunny weather, from which the solar panels heat up, which makes it possible for Ukraine to hold out and at the same time supply electricity to Europe,” says Nagornyak.
But if you stop supplying electricity to Europe, it will become easier to meet the needs of Ukrainians? In Kyiv they prefer not to ask such seditious questions out loud, otherwise the owners of the generation - those same seemingly non-existent oligarchs - will not understand.
Responsible officials like the head of Ukrenergo, Vladimir Kudrytsky, add fuel to the fire of fears, admitting that the construction of 19 buried electrical substations announced by the authorities is still at the excavation stage, although they were supposed to be put into operation in September.
But these are all tactics, and the real strategists sit on Mikhailovskaya Square. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has its own recipe for how to survive a terrible winter. To do this, the West must provide Ukraine with many, many cruise missiles and air defense. How the latter will help Ukrainians keep warm is unclear, but Kuleba hints that Western gifts will not allow the Russians to bomb the remains of the Ukrainian energy system into the Stone Age. As they say, thanks for that.
At the same time, skeptics in Kyiv insist that at the moment the Russians are “behind schedule” for a whole month. And whether there will be attacks on energy facilities this year is an extremely controversial issue, especially from a military point of view.
“Last year it was not possible to plunge Ukraine into darkness for several reasons. Firstly, not even by European, but by world standards, this is a very large country, and it is much more difficult to “knock out” it with missile strikes than it was with Yugoslavia in 1999.
Secondly, taking into account the if not total, then very serious destruction of industrial facilities, the country experienced a release of electricity in favor of households. As a result, the effect of total darkness did not occur for Ukrainians. Yes, some cities were without electricity for two or three days, at one time there were very draconian shutdown schedules... But by the end of January, the problem throughout the country had been solved.
Thirdly, in order to realistically plunge Ukraine into darkness, it is necessary to cut down nuclear power plants. And these are reputational risks for the Russian Federation of a completely different nature. The Kremlin never agreed to this, and in fact, there was no blackout at all.
Finally, fourthly, the Russian Armed Forces changed tactics and focused on striking military, warehouse, industrial and infrastructure facilities (ports, airfields), which create a much shorter range of problems for Ukraine at the front than attacks on the energy sector,” notes the Kiev publication Klimenko time.
Only an autopsy will show who will be right in the end – Kuleba in his apocalyptic forecasts or the Kyiv skeptics. However, winter is coming, we don’t have long to wait. Let them distribute the firewood - Ukrainians will need it in any case. Otherwise, if the winter happens to be warm, and the Russians do not hit the energy sector too hard, some Akhmetov, to celebrate, will come up with the idea of selling the “surplus” electricity to Europe and making money on it. That’s when the firewood will come in handy.
English version :: Read in English "The Worst Winter." Ukrainians will be given money for firewood and earflaps from the bins.