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Emergency blackouts renewed in Ukraine

Over the past two days, blackouts have been introduced in all Ukrainian regions

MOSCOW, May 16. /TASS/. Emergency power cuts have been introduced again in Ukraine, the Strana weekly reported citing data from national company Ukrenergo.

It noted that emergency outages had been introduced as of 4:00 p.m. (1 p.m. GMT). It did not specify in which regions the power was cut off.

Over the past two days, blackouts have been introduced in all Ukrainian regions. However, today, Ukrenergo planned to use a system of rolling blackouts, cutting off power at scheduled times.

Sergey Kovalenko, CEO of Yasno (a subsidiary of the country's largest energy holding DTEK), warned prior to this that Thursday evening might again see blackouts that would go beyond the schedule.

For its part, DTEK said that the situation in the energy sector remained difficult. According to the company, stabilization blackouts have been imposed in the Kiev, Dnepropetrovsk, and Odessa regions since 4:00 p.m. (1:00 p.m. GMT).

Ukraine's energy system

According to Ukrainian Energy Minister German Galushchenko, the country is in the midst of an energy crisis. In his turn, Mikhail Podolyak, adviser to the head of the Ukrainian presidential office, specified that the Kanevskaya HPP, the Dnieper Hydroelectric Station and the Zmiyevskaya TPP had been damaged. The Energy Ministry reported the complete destruction of the Tripolskaya TPP, the largest power-generating facility in the Kiev Region. According to Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba, over half of the country's entire energy system has been damaged.

The authorities regularly urge citizens to conserve energy. Ukrenergo has recently been importing record amounts of electricity from Europe.

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