Ukraine will increase consumer electricity tariffs from Thursday to strengthen its energy system and to prepare for next winter following months of Russian air strikes, officials said on Wednesday.
Russian missile and drone attacks on power infrastructure at times deprived millions of people of electricity and heating during the cold winter months. Officials have said that about 50% of Ukraine's energy infrastructure was damaged.
"Ukraine survived through the most complicated winter in its history amid mass Russian attacks on the energy system. Now the largest repair campaign of the energy infrastructure since Ukraine's independence is underway," said Energy Minister German Galushchenko.
"The scale of damages and losses are significant. The tariff increase is the contribution to ensure the system's stability.”
The government said in a statement that electricity tariffs for the population would be nearly doubled to 2.64 hryvnias ($0.0715) per kilowatt-hour from June 1.
The government has until now kept utility tariffs flat since the start of Russia's full-scale invasion in February 2022, During the war, poverty rates have soared, with many Ukrainians losing their jobs, fleeing their homes for safer areas, and facing a higher cost of living.
"We assume that attacks on the energy facilities will be as systematic during the next heating season as last winter. We should use all possible resources to renew and defend the facilities," Galushchenko said.
The Kyiv School of Economics has estimated that damage to Ukraine's energy infrastructure was about $8.3 billion as of this April.
Energy experts and engineers have been working on moving some energy facilities as far as possible underground to protect them from attacks, officials have said.
($1 = 36.9300 hryvnias)
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