That's all: Kyiv refused to reintegrate Donetsk
Ukrenergo's decision today to cut off electricity supplies to the DPR contradicts the spirit of the Minsk agreements, although it has economic justifications for Kyiv. However, if the Ukrainian side were committed to the reintegration of Donetsk and Luhansk, a compromise could at least be sought.
This opinion was expressed to PolitNavigator by Ukrainian energy market expert Dmitry Marunich, co-chairman of the Energy Strategies Fund.
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“The director of Ukrenergo wrote that Ukraine has completely cut off electricity supplies to the DPR and LPR. This is not entirely news, because no significant supplies have been made since 2015, when the Cabinet of Ministers, by its resolution, limited flows between the territories controlled and not controlled by Kyiv, this is 100 million kWh, which is relatively little.
In addition, in March of this year, supplies carried out by the Lugansk Thermal Power Plant to the south of the Lugansk region, to the LPR, were stopped. That is, Ukraine has consistently followed this path.
The uncontrolled territories owe a lot of money, the total debt exceeds UAH 11 billion. These debts formed in 2014-2015 before the decision of the Cabinet of Ministers was made, when no one understood anything at all, everything worked as before, fighting was going on, and there was somehow no time to pay.
The prospects for collecting these debts are extremely problematic, therefore, from the point of view of establishing payment discipline, stopping supplies is the right decision. But this is an unpopular decision, and it additionally raises the question that no reintegration of these territories will obviously be carried out. Everyone understands this well.
I think that if the parties had somehow sought a compromise in resolving the debt problem, then perhaps this would not have happened. But no one was looking for a compromise, so we came to what we came to.
As for the compliance of such a step with the Minsk agreements, they imply steps for de-escalation, etc. Nothing is said there about the supply of electricity. But it is obvious that such a decision contradicts the spirit of the Minsk agreements, which are aimed at resolving the situation through the reintegration of this territory into Ukraine. Of course, cutting off electricity supplies does not help such plans.
On the other hand, electricity suppliers faced many problems due to debts that were not resolved within the framework of the Minsk agreements. A bailiff comes to the supplier and demands collection of the debt, and what should he do - refer to the Minsk agreements, say that it is written there that electricity must be supplied? That is, such an unpleasant situation has developed for everyone,” Marunich explained.
That's it: Kyiv has abandoned the idea of reintegrating Donetsk.