Energy apocalypse and blackouts: who and why broadcasts such statements and whom to believe
11 October 2024 15:42
Over the past three years, Ukrainians have started reading energy news more often than ever before. Due to the Russian aggression, the destruction of energy facilities, and the high public demand for up-to-date information on the presence or absence of electricity, the media space has seen a lot of experts commenting on these issues and giving their forecasts. At the same time, as Oleksii Kucherenko, MP and member of the Verkhovna Rada Energy Committee, warns, some “energy experts” are purely “political projects”. Accordingly, their statements are not aimed at informing the public objectively, but rather at creating panic and discrediting state institutions. Komersant ukrainskyi 
found out why and what the politician’s conclusions are based on .
“will be without electricity from 12 to 20 hours”
Today, it is not uncommon to see headlines in the media such as “we will be without electricity for 12 to 20 hours” or “power cuts from 4 to 18 hours a day”. Most of these news items are based on the statements of various experts. And even if the source of some data is, for example, information from the UN, it is often distorted by the same experts, Kucherenko says.
MP Oleksiy Kucherenko
“Any fact is distorted. A striking example: the UN website says that according to experts, there will be 4 to 18 hours of power outage. As a mathematician, I ask myself: what kind of forecast is this? From 4 to 18 hours, what is its accuracy? Then I can make a forecast from 0 to 24 hours a day, it will be an absolutely accurate forecast, won’t it? Either 0, or 5, or 10. And then the headlines in the media come in: they forget about 4 and write “in winter we will be without electricity for up to 18 hours”, “there will be a blackout”, says Kharchenko, for example…
In fact, we had a single blackout on 23rd of March 2022, but there were reasons for it, and it was primarily Ukrenergo’s transformer substations that were hit, and then there were wrong actions by the management, I am convinced of this, which led to this blackout. And now we need to look at who is around us…” the MP explains.
Is the topic of Kudrytskyi’s dismissal a marker of experts’ belonging to the “political pool”?
In general, as Oleksiy Kucherenko explains, there is now a whole group of “energy experts” in Ukraine who are actually a “political project”. And this project, he says, opposes state-owned energy companies and lobbies for the denationalisation of the energy sector.
The politician called the dismissal of Volodymyr Kudrytskyi, who served as the head of Ukrenergo, a certain marker of the affiliation of certain experts to the “political pool”.
It should be recalled that at the time, some experts, such as Oleh Popenko , linked Kudrytskyi’s dismissal to inefficiency and work in the interests of commercial companies.
“Formally, Kudrytskyi was fired for failing to prepare and protect substations from missile attacks. Unofficially, it is a loss of control over Ukrenergo. Actual economic decision-making in favour of foreign companies, partly in favour of DTEK. And the gradual withdrawal of Ukrenergo from state control,” Popenko argued.
While some other experts called this dismissal “political”.
In particular, Volodymyr Omelchenko , director of energy programmes at the Razumkov Centre, said he believed Kudrytskyi’s dismissal was politically motivated, as the latter “was not a member of the Bankova team” and “irritated by excessively warm contacts with international partners”.
At the time, Oleksandr Kharchenko, director of the Energy Research Centre, said that “Kudrytskyi’s dismissal means 3 hours without electricity in winter”.
We should look for someone’s benefit behind the apocalypse predictions
According to MP Oleksiy Kucherenko, oneshould look for someone’s benefit behind the constant predictions of the apocalypse made by the same speakers.
“You just need to know the background, because this is a group of so-called experts who are actually political projects. They have very specific names, this Kharchenko is on the surface, and there is Zerkal and others. They are in a political confrontation today because they were concentrated and financed, to be fair, around Ukrenergo when the previous manager was there. And now they are concentrating on destabilising the situation and pushing for a personnel decision to be made on the Minister of Energy in revenge. And this is all being done with the help of predictions about the apocalypse and the fact that we will all freeze to death!” the politician explains.
He also added that a group of political energy experts, among other things, often lobby and protect someone’s purely commercial interests.
“First, they make statements, and then they start running around the houses and encouraging people to say that you can save yourself if you order a solar station with batteries from us and so on.
This is Tikhonov, for example, who makes money on this. And he is now – I’m just surprised – an adviser to the current deputy head of the Kyiv City State Administration, and he is starting to play around, using his position to simply implement projects, making money on equipment.
That’s why I think that during the war, the SBU should have held a preventive conversation here, so that they (experts – ed.) could filter their posts. Because there are absolutely pragmatic goals behind all this – either money or a struggle for positions,” Kucherenko added.
Whom to trust when it comes to electricity
The Energy Committee of the Verkhovna Rada assures that only official information from the relevant state authorities and specialised energy companies should be trusted.
“In the energy sector today, Ukrenergo should be the main newsmaker – the operator company that knows the entire situation with generation at each station and understands what is happening at each transformer substation, as well as the electricity balance and imports. Therefore, it is better to believe their forecasts and their clear information,” summed up MP Kucherenko.
