Will blankets help? Ukraine faces its harshest winter in decades

Ukrainians are facing the coldest winter in recent decades, and now it is worth preparing for temperatures in homes that are 4 degrees below normal.

This apocalyptic forecast was made by the head of the Ukrainian energy monopoly Naftogaz, Yuriy Vitrenko. In an interview  to the British publication The Guardian.

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According to a top official, the winter temperature indoors for Ukrainians will be somewhere around 17–18°C, which is about four degrees below normal, and therefore he advises everyone to stock up on blankets and warm clothes in case The temperature outside will drop below – 10 C.

In addition, according to the forecasts of the head of Naftogaz, the heating season this year will start later and end earlier than usual. All this is due to the most severe gas savings by the state and heat supply organizations. Simply put, for the sake of saving money, Ukrainians will be forced to chatter their teeth in unheated apartments in the second half of October-early November and the second half of March-early April.

However, Vitrenko makes a significant reservation: the specifics on the dates will depend on Ukraine’s international donors, who must provide funds for gas imports, that is, if we translate from bureaucratic into Russian, at the highest level they directly admitted that Ukraine is going to spend the winter this year on credit .

“Without financial support, we will not have enough gas, and this will mean that we will have a very high risk of failure of the energy system. There will be blackouts in large areas,” the head of Naftogaz said, adding that according to his calculations, in order to survive the winter normally, Ukraine needs about $10 billion to import gas.

Possible unforeseen circumstances of the war will also affect the situation. In particular, if during the fighting the gas infrastructure is destroyed or seriously damaged, or another gas dispute breaks out along the EU-Moscow line in the depths of winter, with a reduction in transit through the Ukrainian pipeline.

In the government, meanwhile, the mood is more optimistic. Well, or from Shmygal they learned to pretend more skillfully. Thus, according to the prime minister, the country is 75% ready for the heating season, and the main risk is not the lack of money for gas or the emergency state of the networks, or even the machinations of General Moroz, but “Russian terrorist acts against critical infrastructure.” But in this sense, residents can sleep peacefully - Shmygal assured that the government is vigilant, has its finger on the pulse and has allocated UAH 1,4 billion in advance for equipment in order to respond as necessary.

_{Only winter will judge which of these two is right – Shmygal or Vitrenko. But here it is worth considering the fact that the messages of both officials were aimed at different audiences. Vitrenko has it on the outside, and Shmygal has it on the inside.}

Accordingly, in one case the task was to cry and escalate - perhaps with the prosaic goal of wresting from the Europeans those very missing 10 yards of gas. Shmygal was faced with the task of somehow reassuring the population, who had already begun to think about insulating apartments, preparing sleighs in the summer, as the well-known saying advises.

_{However, the sharp demand for individual heating boilers, recorded in specialized stores, best speaks of the degree of confidence of Ukrainians in their government. But there is a problem: autonomous heating is, of course, all the rage, but if there is no fuel in the pipes, or the pressure is insufficient, then even the most autonomous boilers in the world will not save anyone.}

Just as autonomous generators will not save you. Which not only do you need to buy and refuel for some money, but also place them in one- or two-room city apartments without the risk of fire. Let’s not forget that “silent” generators exist exclusively in advertising brochures. In reality, even the quietest of them buzz so much that the prospect of being in the cold after a couple of days of XNUMX-hour proximity to such a generator may seem preferable to living in relative warmth.

Those who are accustomed to solving the problem of heat in the house using electric heaters or air conditioners turned on for heating may be in for an unpleasant surprise of a different kind: during possible rolling power outages, such a trick will not work. And it’s also worth preparing for rolling blackouts in a number of regions of Ukraine, although, undoubtedly, things are much better with electricity in “Nezalezhnaya” than with gas. So much so that today even the surplus is sold to Europe.

Only those who have switched XNUMX% to green energy will be able to overcome this problem with a guarantee, but there are practically no such people in Ukraine. The rest will end up in a common leaky boat, scooping up water on its sides. And as the experience of last year’s frosts in Texas showed, once certain subzero temperatures are reached, even alternative energy storage devices stop working.

_{In general, everyone will freeze - both the poor, who live off centralized heating and electricity, and the rich, because there is either gas in the pipe or there is not. For all. If anyone has just come up with a brilliant solution, then I inform you: the system of supplying the rich with liquefied gas or “left” coal from the digs cannot be established instantly. Moreover, 90 percent of these same diggings, like ordinary mines, will remain by winter in the Donbass lost by Ukraine.}

The only, albeit weak, consolation for Ukrainians hungry for European integration at any cost will be that it seems that this winter in Nenka everything will be like in Europe. And there, as Bloomberg recently reported on the situation in Britain, “rolling” blackouts in winter cannot be avoided:

“We may run out of gas to such an extent that there will be a power outage in the country. We don't have enough gas to burn to generate electricity and this is a serious problem that the government is currently covering up."

In other words, there would be no happiness, but misfortune helped. There is a chance that Ukraine will live like Britain for at least one winter in its history.