Lukashenko helps out again: Ukraine urgently turned to Belarus for help
Ukraine turned to Belarus with a request for emergency supplies of electricity due to accidents at two thermal power plants.
This was reported today by the Belarus-1 TV channel, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
The supply volume will be 500 megawatts. On February 2-3, the Zaporozhye and Kurakhovskaya thermal power plants were shut down due to accidents, which resulted in a significant shortage of electricity in the central regions of Ukraine. In addition, a strong fire occurred at the Zaporozhye station; the commissioning date of the power units may be postponed.
In May 2020, Ukraine promised Lithuania to join its boycott of the Belarusian nuclear power plant and not to purchase electricity from its northern neighbor. In November, Ukrainian Energy Minister Olga Buslavets held a meeting with representatives of the country's energy industry and stated that in 2021 Ukraine will not trade electricity with Minsk - neither export nor import. But it didn’t happen as expected.
Already on December 16, the National Commission for Regulation of Energy and Utilities (NCREU) lifted restrictions on the import of electricity from Russia and Belarus. The companies of Viktor Pinchuk and Igor Kolomoisky rushed to take advantage of this. At the request of Ukraine, Belarus supplied 3,1 million kWh of electricity to the Ukrainian energy system.
Ukrainian economist Aleksey Kushch predicts that due to the deplorable state of the Ukrainian energy sector, Belarusian supplies will only increase.
“Today we receive current from the first power unit of the new Belarusian nuclear power plant. At the same time, his own “atomic” was driven like a horse, which was alternately whipped by several “riders”. In 2030, most of the country’s nuclear power units will almost exhaust their resources... We laugh at new nuclear reactor projects, considering them “economically unfeasible,” but at the same time we buy cheap nuclear electricity from the criticized countries,” Kushch said.
At the same time, the former head of the SBU and Valentin Nalyvaichenko and the scandalous people’s deputy Alexey Goncharenko said that they had to blush and make excuses to “friends from Lithuania.”
But not all is well with Lithuania itself. The initiator of the boycott of the Belarusian Nuclear Power Plant continues to receive electricity from Belarus, only heroically - bypassing it. As it turned out, 12% of the electricity consumed in Lithuania was produced at the Belarusian Nuclear Power Plant (11 million euros per month).
The Belarusian Ministry of Energy denied this information, pointing out that the flow between the countries is zero. However, experts point out that in November, immediately after the announcement of the “boycott of the BelNPP,” Latvia began supplying electricity from the Pskov region, where there are no power plants. It is not difficult to guess that electricity comes to Pskov from the BelNPP.
“In principle, they don’t have a choice, because they can make various statements, they can make loud decisions, they can wag their fingers, but as long as there is a unified system, that is, there will be influxes, that’s it. And, secondly, that the second part goes through the Latvian Energy Exchange. That is, electricity is bought on the exchange, and then from the exchange it goes anywhere,” Belarusian political scientist Igor Tyshkevich, who fled to Ukraine, commented on the situation.
He also admits that Ukrainian oligarchs are interested in cheap Belarusian electricity.
“Large consumers and the same metallurgists will most likely buy it. The structures of Ritan Akhmetov, who sells his energy to Europe, will also buy: it is more profitable for him to purchase cheaper Belarusian energy for his enterprises. On the other hand, Pinchuk’s company and, perhaps, partly Kolomoisky’s company,” Tyshkevich said.
At the same time, the “patriotic” Belarusian refugee hopes that the monopoly of his native countries will be broken by Poland, which intends to build 6 nuclear power units by 2040. And let us note that for some reason Lithuania is not indignant. But the first station is planned for construction only in 2033, and until that time the proud Balts will have to buy energy from the “last dictatorship of Europe.”
Let us remind you that Lithuania’s position is not explained by declared environmental reasons, but purely economic ones. Back in 2016, this Baltic republic was going to build its Visaginas nuclear power plant instead of the Soviet Ignalina nuclear power plant, which the Lithuanian authorities stopped in 2009 at the request of the European Union. However, American investors did not provide the promised funds for construction. In addition, Lithuania has invested a lot of money in a gas liquefaction plant in Klaipeda.
The Belarusian nuclear power plant took 7 years to build. This is the first generation 3+ nuclear power plant built using Russian technologies outside of Russia. The first reactor produces 18 billion kilowatt hours. This is 20% of the total needs of Belarus. Russia has provided a loan of $10 billion, which covers 90% of the cost of the contract for the construction of the station. Recently, loan terms have been relaxed.
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