By Pavel Polityuk
KYIV, Jan 28 (Reuters) – Life will be particularly tough for Ukrainians over the next three weeks due to plunging temperatures and a compromised energy infrastructure that has been pummelled by intense Russian attacks, depriving millions of light and heat, a senior lawmaker said on Wednesday.
Despite progress in peace talks that has led to trilateral negotiations between Russia, Ukraine and the U.S. for the first time, Russia has stepped up bombardments beyond the front line that stretches across eastern and southern Ukraine.
Temperatures of below -20 degrees Celsius (-4°F) are expected in the northern and eastern part of Ukraine next week, according to official forecasts, extremely low for the country.
“The bad news is that there will indeed be frosts, and it will be difficult,” Andriy Gerus, the head of the parliament’s energy committee, told the national TV channel, Marathon.
“The good news is that we need to hold out for three weeks, and then it will get easier,” he added, citing predicted warmer temperatures and increased solar power from longer days.
UKRAINE CALLS FOR ‘ENERGY CEASEFIRE’
The last two Russian missile and drone attacks on the capital Kyiv in January left about a million people without electricity and 6,000 apartment buildings without heating.
After weeks of repairs, about 700 buildings still lack heat.
Energy Minister Denys Shmyhal, writing on Telegram after a meeting devoted to energy on Wednesday, said 610,000 Kyiv households remained without power.
That picture is replicated across the country, with northern and eastern Ukraine, home to major cities including Kyiv, Kharkiv, Chernihiv and Sumy, regularly targeted, resulting in power restrictions for industry and power cuts for consumers.
Attacks on power stations, the energy transmission system and the gas sector have long been key elements of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine launched by Russia in February 2022. Moscow says it is seeking to undermine Ukraine’s ability to fight.
The head of Ukraine’s largest private power producer DTEK told Reuters last week that Ukraine is nearing a “humanitarian catastrophe” due to the damage to its energy systems amidst the freezing temperatures, calling for a ceasefire on attacks on energy assets. Kyiv has targeted Russian oil processing infrastructure to reduce state revenues funding the war.
DTEK on Wednesday said the situation had improved sufficiently to introduce from midnight a schedule of power cuts for the first time in weeks in the capital.
Ukraine’s solar energy association said around 1.5 gigawatts of new solar capacity was commissioned by Ukraine in 2025 and the total installed solar capacity in Ukraine exceeded 8.5 gigawatts, including residential installations.
The volume is higher than the installed capacity of all three Ukrainian-controlled nuclear power plants of 7.7 gigawatts – and helped the country cope during repairs to those plants last summer – but output depends on the weather.
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said this month Ukraine’s damaged energy system was meeting only 60% of the country’s electricity needs this winter, with electricity generation capacity of 11 gigawatts against a need of 18 gigawatts.
Maximum electricity imports from EU countries, combined with power cuts across entire regions, are allowing the system to remain balanced nevertheless.
(Reporting by Pavel Polityuk; Editing by Daniel Flynn, Philippa Fletcher, Ron Popeski and David Gregorio)
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