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UKRAINE WAR

Ukraine resumes electricity exports to Europe

April 11 (Reuters) - Ukraine has resumed electricity exports to Europe, its energy minister said late on Monday, after they were suspended in October when Russia began launching regular missile and drone attacks at critical energy infrastructure.
Daily life in Kharkiv and Donetsk regions Workers repair power lines damaged by shelling, in Studenok village, Kharkiv Region, Ukraine, 05 April 2023. Russian troops entered Ukrainian territory on 24 February 2022, starting a conflict that has provoked destruction and a humanitarian crisis. EPA-EFE/OLEG PETRASYUK

The strikes caused sweeping power outages for civilians and industries, forcing workers to work overtime to try to repair the grid.

"We have resumed exports," Energy Minister German Galushchenko said, adding that Russia "did not succeed at all at destroying our energy system".

The European Union is Ukraine's main export market for energy. Galushchenko said the supply of electricity to the domestic population remained the country's priority despite the resumption of exports.

"We hope to reach the export volumes that we had last year. We plan and will conduct negotiations to increase them because today's reserves in the system allow us to do that," he said in televised comments.

In June 2022, Ukraine, which used to export power to Moldova, Hungary, Slovakia and Poland, said it was hoping to bring in 1.5 billion euros ($1.64 billion) from electricity exports to the EU by the end of the year.

"There are currently plans to increase cross-border traffic between Ukraine and Poland, which will increase exports," Galushchenko said.

The International Criminal Court's top prosecutor visited Ukraine in February to investigate Russia's air strikes on the power grid.

Kyiv says the attacks aimed to intimidate ordinary civilians. Moscow said they were aimed at weakening the enemy's military.

(Reporting by Aleksandar Vasovic; Editing by Tom Balmforth and Jan Harvey)

Comments

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John Cartwright Apr 11, 2023, 04:41 PM

That's resilience!

rocheburgers Apr 11, 2023, 06:43 PM

So the take away from this, is that the ANC Cadre is more harmful on an electricity enterprise, than what was once considered the second most powerful military in the world. And coincidentally the preferred chum of the anc. The export of electricity, reminds one of the fact that Eskom was able to export electricity before it fell into the grasp of the thieving ANC Cadre.

Geoff Woodruff Apr 11, 2023, 08:47 PM

If we gave Russia our Eskom personnel as saboteurs they would have would have Ukraine on its knees in a week...