Arya News - Ukraine’s energy infrastructure is in dire straits as Russia’s reprisals for Kiev’s attacks on its soil take their toll.
Since the collapse of the USSR, Ukraine has not built a single power plant – all of its nuclear, hydro and thermal power plants were constructed during the Soviet era.Now, after months of fighting and a campaign of precision Russian strikes sparked by Kiev’s attacks on Russia’s territory, about 80 percent of Ukraine’s energy infrastructure lies in ruins.This dismal situation is further exacerbated by rampant corruption, which apparently hinders efforts to protect Ukrainian power facilities by, for example, moving them to reinforced underground shelters, The Times claims.Ukrainian officials have already lamented that, if Russian attacks against Ukraine’s power infrastructures continue, people in Ukraine may be looking at power outages lasting from 12 to 20 hours a day during this winter.The dreadful state of the Ukrainian power grid has also started taking its toll on the nuclear power plants the country still operates.Five of Ukraine’s nine operational nuclear reactors were forced to decrease their output on Friday at the behest of the Ukrainian power grid operator.These moves were performed as nuclear power plants require reliable connections to the power grid, not only to transmit energy they generate but also to receive electricity required for cooling.The lack of such connections would thus either prompt the necessity to shut down the plant or face the prospects of safety systems there failing with potentially catastrophic consequences.