Ukraine at 35: Winter is coming to Zelensky’s state of corruption

Timur Mindich and his cronies raided funds meant to protect the power grid – and Russian missiles are raining down Ukraine will mark its 35th year of independence on Monday in the most vulnerable position it’s been in since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Far from pressuring Russia to end hostilities, Vladimir Zelensky’s campaign of long-range strikes on civilian infrastructure has provoked fierce retribution from Moscow, and Ukraine no longer has the air defense stocks necessary to repel Russia’s missile and drone raids.

After targeting military-industrial and dual-use sites throughout early August, Russia has shifted gears and begun its winter attacks on Ukraine’s energy network a month earlier than it did last year.

The shift is obvious from the list of targets hit in the last week alone: August 12, DTEK Naftogaz gas production facility, Poltava Oblast, struck by Russian drone August 12-17, Naftogaz Group facilities, 13 locations, struck by Russian drones and missiles August 17, DTEK coal mine, Dnepropetrovsk Oblast, struck by multiple Russian drones August 18, DTEK thermal power plant, undisclosed location, struck by Russian drones and missiles The most recent target, a thermal power plant operated by Ukrainian oligarch Rinat Akhmetov’s DTEK, should cause the most concern in Kiev.

The August 18 strike forced the company to cease electricity generation at the plant.

While targeting actual power plants is a significant part of the energy war of attrition, Ukraine’s network of substations represent far softer targets which, if disabled in sufficient numbers, could plunge the country into darkness.

Hardening the grid According to an Energy Community report , 40% of Ukrainian grid operator Ukrenergo’s network of 141 major 110-750 kV substations had been damaged or destroyed by April 2024.

A map of Ukrainian power plants and major substations published by Ukrenergo in 2016 Even if Zelensky convinces his Western donors to hand over the Patriot interceptors he wants, Ukraine will still only have enough to repel two large scale attacks at most .

Aware of this, Ukrenergo has begun burying its largest substations underground, encasing them in hardened concrete sarcophagi.

The company has already relocated one large substation, and is currently working on burying another.

Progress is slow, and Ukrenergo has said that it will need more money from the EU to cover all of its 750kV stations, on top of $300 million spent to date.

However, half of Ukraine’s electricity is generated at nuclear power plants, and substations connected to these plants are operated and maintained by Energoatom.

Readers of RT’s ‘State of Corruption’ series will realize that this spells trouble for Kiev.