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Ukrainian energy holding tells citizens they are on their own this winter

CEO of DTEK Dmitry Sakharuk said that company had lost 90% of its generation capacities

MOSCOW, July 24. /TASS/. The CEO of Ukraine’s DTEK energy holding, Dmitry Sakharuk, advised citizens to rely on themselves this winter and to think about ways of how to get through the upcoming cold season.

"You are on your own. I’m not joking. Everything is in our hands, everything depends on each one of us," the Ekonomicheskaya Pravda newspaper quoted him as saying.

In his words, the government needs to intensify preparations for the cold season. "[The speed] needs to be multiplied by 100. Only in this case we will manage to achieve something," the CEO added.

Sakharuk reiterated that DTEK had lost 90% of its generation capacities. In his words, the company plans to restore around 60-70% of its generation capacities before the winter season, including "with the use of old equipment, which is now being dismantled from decommissioned power generation facilities in Europe."

Ukrainian lawmaker Sergey Nagornyak, who is a member of the parliament’s committee on power generation and utilities, said in late June that the upcoming winter will be the toughest in Ukraine’s newest history. He advised citizens to look for houses which they can heat up on their own. The country’s former minister of energy and coal industry, Ivan Plachkov, said the upcoming heating season will be a disaster and advised citizens to move in with their relatives or friends living in rural areas, where houses can be heated with wood.

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 government regularly urges citizens to save electricity, while Ukrenergo is importing record-high amounts of electricity from Europe.