After Ukraine announced on Monday about 450 mln. development of a wind farm in the Mykolaiv region, officials emphasized that the turbines will be placed far enough apart to withstand any Russian missile attack. They condemned Moscow’s continued attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure in the run-up to winter.
In addition, the American diplomat strongly condemned Russian President Vladimir Putin at one event.
“The war in Ukraine – Putin’s invasion – is a fundamental challenge to the international system that the United States and our allies and partners are trying to build,” US Assistant Secretary of State for Energy Geoffrey R. Pyatt told the AP news agency. – Putin wants to bring us back to the days when the laws of the jungle were in force. He must be defeated.”
The Russian embassies in the UAE capital Abu Dhabi and Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Ukrainian pavilion, whose roof was brought from the war-torn region of Kherson, reminds the participants of the COP28 conference of the ongoing war in this country and the collapse of the Kachovka dam in June. Ukraine and Russia blame each other for the dam collapse.
On Monday, in the pavilion, the private Ukrainian energy producer DTEK signed a memorandum of understanding with the Danish company “Vestas” regarding the development of the wind farm project in Mykolaiv. The first phase began during the war, the working teams spent about a third of their time in bomb shelters, said DTEK CEO Maksymas Timchenko.
“They work with bulletproof vests and see rockets flying overhead,” Timchenko said. – Therefore, we are proud of this achievement. It also gives us more confidence to start the second phase and complete this project. We are ready to fight.”
The new 450 million EUR 100 million in financing was obtained from banks with government guarantees and war risk insurance, Ms. Timchenko said, praising Denmark for its role in securing the financing of the project.
The expansion of the energy grid comes at a time when Russia still occupies Europe’s largest nuclear power plant in Ukraine, the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant, and when the fighting also puts others at risk. This winter, with the onset of cold weather, Ukrainians may be left without electricity again.
Last winter, Russia destroyed about half of Ukraine’s electrical infrastructure, including electricity and power transmission lines. Ukraine says infrastructure has been restored over the summer, but last month’s worst wave of Russian attacks of the war, using Iranian-supplied drones, fueled fears that Ukraine’s power grid will be under attack again.
“Putin has made energy one of his weapons,” said JR Pyatt, the former US ambassador to Ukraine. – He did it by attacking civilian energy infrastructure with drones and missiles. He did this by turning off gas pipelines to weaken Europe’s resolve to support the Ukrainians.”
“So we understood from day one that for Vladimir Putin, energy is as important a part of his war strategy as tanks and missiles,” he added.
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2024-08-22 12:19:40
