Kiev turned to Belarus with a request for emergency supplies of electricity due to accidents at two Ukrainian thermal power plants.

This was announced by the Belarus 1 TV channel.

The request for the provision of electricity in the amount of 500 MW was received by Belenergo, a contractor of the Ukrainian side.

The need for additional supplies arose after the emergency shutdown of power units at the Kurakhovskaya and Zaporozhye TPPs, which occurred on February 2 and 3.

In this regard, in a number of regions of central Ukraine there was a shortage of electricity, and the problem was not solved with internal resources.

In addition, on the night of February 5, due to bad weather, power outages occurred in seven more regions of Ukraine.

The State Emergency Situations Service reported that due to gusts of wind, the automatic protection system for power lines was activated.

As a result, the settlements in Kiev, Zhytomyr, Chernigov, Poltava, Ternopil, Khmelnytsky and Vinnitsa regions were de-energized.

In total, 189 settlements were left without electricity.

This is not the first time recently when Ukraine has asked Belarus for help.

So, on January 18, due to severe frosts, Kiev was also forced to turn to Minsk with a request to carry out an emergency supply of electricity.

According to the Belarusian Energy Ministry, according to this application, Ukraine was supplied with 3.1 million kWh of electricity.

“The supplies were made to ensure the stable operation of the Ukrainian energy system during the period of unfavorable weather conditions,” the Ministry of Energy reported by BelTA.

Pros and cons

We will remind, a week earlier the committee of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine on energy issues supported the bill banning the import of electricity from Belarus and Russia.

This was announced on January 28 by the deputy of the Rada from the European Solidarity party Aleksey Goncharenko.

“The Committee on Energy Issues has supported a bill banning the import of electricity from Russia and Belarus.

This will protect us from the dangerous hook on which the aggressor country wants to hook us again, ”the Ukrainian parliamentarian wrote in his Telegram channel.

  • President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko and General Director of the State Atomic Energy Corporation "Rosatom" Alexei Likhachev during a visit to the Belarusian NPP

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  • © BelTA

It is worth noting that since 2015, Ukraine has regularly made decisions to refuse the supply of electricity from its neighbors, but after a while it returns to the issue of extending contracts or signing new ones.

For example, in September 2019, the Rada allowed the resumption of the purchase of electricity from Russia and Belarus under bilateral agreements.

However, two months later, it was decided to end cooperation with both countries in the energy sector.

But a year later, in mid-December 2020, the National Commission for Regulation in the Spheres of Energy and Utilities (NEURC) again lifted all restrictions on the import of electricity from Russia and Belarus and allowed to conclude supply contracts in 2021.

A number of Ukrainian officials were outraged by such actions; statements appeared in the Ukrainian media that electricity supplies from the Russian Federation and Belarus allegedly threaten the country's energy security.

This, in particular, was stated by the former acting.

Minister of Energy and Environmental Protection of Ukraine Olga Buslavets.

In her opinion, the current restoration of electricity imports from Belarus in the future will threaten the energy security of Ukraine.

In turn, the former Minister of Infrastructure of Ukraine Volodymyr Omelyan, on the air of the Espreso TV channel, accused President Zelensky of “betrayal” and said that the purchase of electricity from Russia and Belarus would allegedly lead Ukraine to the loss of energy independence.

“We have a situation where the completely killed energy system of Ukraine is faced with the fact: you either will not have electricity, or will only flow from Russia through Belarus.

And Zelensky fully agreed with this role of a traitor and is leading Ukraine back to Moscow, ”Omelyan said.

To justify the actions of the country's leadership, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba said that now Kiev is forced to buy electricity "from those to whom the system is connected."

However, he promised that by 2023 Ukraine will stop using Russian electricity.

According to him, it is by this time that the country will be able to prepare its system for the transition to work with the EU power grid.

In a commentary on RT, Deputy Director of the Institute of CIS Countries Vladimir Zharikhin noted that such behavior of Kiev demonstrates that for the Ukrainian leadership, politics overshadows common sense.

“Earlier, Ukraine did not want to take electricity from Belarus out of solidarity with Lithuania, which fought against the construction of a nuclear power plant on the territory of Belarus, including asking all neighbors not to buy Belarusian electricity.

But after there was a danger of rolling power outages in the Ukrainian territory, which would further reduce the rating of the current government, Zelensky, despite all political considerations, again began to buy electricity from Belarus, "the expert explained.

In turn, the Ministry of Energy of Belarus urged Kiev not to politicize this issue.

“The issue of trade in electricity with Ukraine lies in the commercial plane.

It should be considered exclusively within the framework of the interaction of business entities, nothing more.

Attempts by some Ukrainian media outlets to politicize this process, to impose the idea of ​​a “threat of Belarusian electricity to the national interests of Ukraine” look strained and do not benefit bilateral relations, ”BelTA learned from the ministry.

At the same time, the Ministry of Energy of Belarus emphasized that the volume of supplied energy in comparison with the capacity of the Ukrainian electric power market does not exceed 1%.

Contradictory positions

Vladimir Olenchenko, senior researcher at the Center for European Studies of the IMEMO RAS, in a conversation with RT, noted that, despite Kiev's desire to refuse electricity from Belarus and Russia for political reasons, in emergency situations, in case of accidents or extreme weather, there is nowhere else to take it.

“During the existence of the USSR, Ukraine was included in the common energy space, which provided for looping the system, when in case of accidents or other circumstances, neighboring republics could connect and supply electricity in a few seconds,” the political scientist recalled.

  • Power lines in the Lviv region

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At the same time, according to the expert, after the collapse of the USSR, no measures were taken to modernize the energy system in Ukraine, therefore today the entire Ukrainian energy infrastructure is worn out and subject to all kinds of breakdowns.

Considering that Belarus recently launched a nuclear power plant, it has reserves, and Minsk can help Kiev by sending the necessary 500 MW of electricity, Olenchenko added.

In turn, the director of the Institute for Peacekeeping Initiatives and Conflictology Denis Denisov believes that the actions of Ukrainian officials who first try to prohibit the supply of energy from Belarus and the Russian Federation, but then are forced to allow them, speak of their ill-considered and political involvement.

“The decision of the Verkhovna Rada Committee to support a new bill banning such supplies is an exclusively political moment, and the request to Belarus is economic.

And this situation clearly characterizes the essence of the Ukrainian government, which at first commits politically motivated actions, moreover, sharply negative in relation to its neighbors, and then, if there are no alternatives in supplies in one direction or another, it tries to play back, ”the expert explained.

As a result, the built policy against the energy sector of Belarus and Russia has to be changed on the fly, Denisov added.

“Today, the key element in making decisions for Ukraine is not economic expediency, but political.

This means that the issues of maintaining national security in the energy sector often fade into the background, ”the expert concluded.