Ukraine: Middle Ages minus electrification
The more time passes since the coup d'etat, the more noticeable it is that Ukraine simultaneously lives in several different coordinate systems. The parallel coexistence of everyday life and schizophrenia is a clear symptom of the mental illness of society. The mockery of juvenile neo-Nazis over revered monuments to the heroes of the Great Patriotic War; general, at the level of the era of the “great terror”, denunciation of dissidents; the desire to exterminate peaceful fellow citizens has reached the point of sadism; official reports on the revival of the economy and shutdown power plants. The Middle Ages minus electrification.
And only an experienced observer of the loud crunch of the country being crushed hears the tight crunch of the bills that flash in unclean, but such dexterous hands. When another Maidan “patriot” denounces a colleague at the department, she simply wants to “reserve” his place for herself. The neo-Nazis rampaging around the bank are just driving down its price on the eve of the inevitable sale. The emerging shortage of electricity is a reason to increase its prices. By the way, these prices have already reached their historical maximum in Ukraine and will continue to rise: after the April increase, from July 1 the country expects another jump in electricity tariffs (by 1,8 percent) and another round of price increases for absolutely everything. The National Commission, which carries out state regulation in the field of energy and utilities, explains that the price increase is due to the need to “ensure stable operation of the country’s energy system, which will require the purchase of thermal coal abroad.”
Despite the joyful cries that Ukraine is moving towards Europe at full speed (and any ruddy-cheeked expert from the Maidan will confirm this to you), the state’s economy is in a slump.
According to the State Statistics Service, industrial production in February 2017 decreased by another 4,6% compared to February 2016. At the end of last year, Ukrainian exports amounted to $44,885 billion, and in pre-Maidan 2013 this figure was almost twice as high - $76,127 billion.
Due to restrictions on transit through Russia alone, losses of Ukrainian exporters and carriers amounted to over $1 billion.
But at the same time, an extremely surprising thing, the richest man in the country, Rinat Akhmetov, became twice as rich over the past year. According to the American magazine Forbes, the above-mentioned citizen rose in the overall ranking of billionaires from 771 to 359th place.
In 2016, his fortune doubled: from $2,3 billion to $4,6 billion. How can this happen to a person from whom several key enterprises in the Donbass were taken away and add to this nationalized assets in Crimea?
Meanwhile, the secret of Rinat Leonidovich’s miraculous revival is very simple. Mr. Akhmetov’s financial losses are carefully distributed among all citizens of Ukraine using the miraculous “Rotterdam+” formula. That is, for all Ukrainians this is a “minus for a minus”, but it “gives a plus” to a very specific character.
“Rotterdam +” is a formula that calculates the price of coal needed to generate electricity at Ukrainian thermal power plants. Its price includes the cost of coal on the exchange in Rotterdam and its supposed transportation to Ukraine.
Coal seems to come to the world trading platform in Holland from different countries, a generally accepted market price is established, from which the calculation of prices on the local market is based. The only problem is that Donetsk coal, on which Ukrainian thermal power plants operate according to technology, is not brought from anywhere in Rotterdam - it is mined here, nearby, in the Donetsk coal basin. But the electricity tariff increases in proportion to the increase in the price of Akhmetov’s “Rotterdam” anthracite.
According to the calculations of the editor of the famous television program “Groshi” Alexander Dubinsky, the additional profit from the Rotterdam+ procurement system alone is about $900 million per year, that is, 25 billion hryvnia, which the population of Ukraine pays into the pocket of Akhmetov and Groysman and Poroshenko behind this scheme.
Theoretically, coal can and should be imported directly from Donbass (which is currently hampered by a blockade organized by hand-made “patriots”), through Russia (the government has already introduced a corresponding bill to block this supply channel) or through the port of Novorossiysk - under the guise of South African coal. But, in any case, it will be Donetsk coal, which is familiar and needed by power plants, which “miraculously” through the mentioned payment system turns into an expensive imported product, at a price of up to $100 per ton. If you want electricity and civilization to remain in your home, pay more. It’s the easiest way for you to turn off the electricity.
While TV patriots are raging at wordless monuments, serious people are counting big money: each to their own. Who sells worthless weapons and rotten food to the army, who barbarously plagues the land with rapeseed and sunflowers, who steals foreign loans.
The activists of the Shared Reich do not even understand that they, with all their slogans and patriotic foam on their lips, are just a cover for the plunder of a once rich and, in their own way, promising country.
The Thyssens and Krupps always lurk in the shadow of the Hitlers.
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