Ukraine faces toughest winter yet as energy shortages loom

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Attacks on Ukraine’s nuclear plants would be particularly serious, said Kharchenko, the analyst. Kyiv’s reactors currently provide 60 percent of the country’s total power output and any missile strikes on the energy infrastructure supporting those plants could put them out of commission. 

Last month, Ukraine urged the European Union for help, fearing Russia would soon go after its atomic infrastructure. The country’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, warned at the United Nations that such attacks could lead to “nuclear disaster.”

The atomic issue is more serious in part because Ukraine’s other fuel reserves are diminished. The country’s “gas supplies may not be sufficient to meet demand this winter,” said Aura Sabadus, an expert on Eastern European energy markets at the ICIS consultancy, as Kyiv is “uncertain” to meet its gas storage filling targets.

The situation has been made worse this year by the absence of Western traders and companies, who have been “reluctant to inject gas in storage because of repeated Russian attacks and less attractive margins,” she added.

Another unpredictable factor is the weather itself. There is still no “clear signal” indicating how cold the coming months will be in the country, according to Carlo Buontempo, director of the EU’s Copernicus climate change service. However, he noted, a cold snap is “plausible.”

In a worst-case scenario — the temperature plummeting to below minus 10 degrees Celsius and Moscow crippling Ukraine’s nuclear plants — the country could face blackouts of up to 20 hours per day, Kharchenko said.