- Naked Capitalism: Russia Delivers Major Blow to Ukraine by Destroying Kiev’s Biggest Power Plant Archived Message
Posted by t
on April 12, 2024, 1:13 am
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https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2024/04/russia-delivers-major-blow-to-ukraine-by-destroying-kievs-biggest-power-plant.html Posted on April 11, 2024 by Yves Smith Ukraine’s government is facing a juncture described in Marguerite Yourcenar’s The Memoirs of Hadrian: “I begin to discern the profile of my death.” Russia is demonstrating that it can turn the lights out all over Ukraine. That time has now passed. Russia has destroyed the largest generating plant in the Kiev oblast, Tripilska Power Plant. As we’ll explain below, this further reduction of Ukraine’s generating capacity has knock-on effects, most importantly forcing further big cuts via soon necessitating the shutdown of nuclear reactors. The Ukraine power system is approaching a tipping point if it has not already reached it. Commentators early in the war, particularly the hyper-nationalist sorts in Russia, were perplexed that Russia didn’t engage in the typical practice of a belligerent, of knocking out power and communications networks at the outset. The most common one provided was that Putin in particular really did regard the Special Military Operation as not exactly a war and hoped to bring Ukraine to the negotiating table, which indeed happened. So not stoking further Ukraine hostilities by harming civilians, or even unduly discomfiting them, was part of the initial “Let’s bring Kiev to its senses” plan. In addition, many Russians have relatives in Ukraine, so avoiding civilian casualties and even costs were important for domestic reasons. Again, the more martial-minded weren’t happy with the Ministry of Defense, in fall-winter 2022, toying with Ukraine’s grid by selectively targeting transmission, inflicting damage that that Ukraine could repair in at worst a few days. John Helmer, who has given far and away the best analysis of the electrical war, depicted Russia as figuring out how the system worked so as to more efficiently drop the hammer when the time came. Others soon added that a major point of this campaign was to speed up the process of draining Ukraine of air defense missiles. Note that Russia intensified its grid strikes and began targeting generation capacity very close to when the Pentagon had said Ukraine would run out of air defense missiles, at the end of March. And on top of that, Russia has been taking out the weapons platforms too. One YouTuber (was it Brian Berletic?) recently said Ukraine might now has as few as three Patriot launch systems. But there’s another reason for waiting until Ukraine’s military was on the rope and its air defenses were badly depleted. If Russia had tried prostrating Ukraine via widespread power outages much earlier (even assuming it wasn’t unduly costly against a Ukraine with intact air defenses) it would have been the dog that caught the car. Russia had dithered about developing a Plan B until the embarrassing Kharkiv and Kherson pull-backs forced Russia to act. Amazingly. Russia was able to start and implement its partial mobilization, with 6 to 7 months of training for new enlistees, with the West doing nothing to force Russia’s timetable. They were so high on the Russian retreats and their own PR that Russia any day now, yessiree, was going to run out of missiles that they gave Russia extremely valuable time to build up its capabilities and its weapons supplies. Weirdly, they even saw Russia demonstrate its capabilities by constructing the Surovikin Line, yet still refused to get the memo. As Helmer described in his last post, the destruction of generating capacity will start to beget more destruction, as limited supply will lead to load-balancing problems and surges, which will do yet more damage to the grid itself and user equipment. As a tweet by Sergej Sumlenny, LL.Mexplains: Let me say it clear: Ukraine’s power production is close to collapse. 1) Coal and gas power stations are vital for balancing the demand-and-supply problem in a large network, as they can increase and decrease production. 2) Ukraine’s Nuclear Power Plants cannot work without this balancing. 3) And Ukraine’s hydro power plants are too few (and also targeted by the Russians, several damaged). 4) So effectively, Russia provokes not only a blackout in a 40-million-people country, amid a war, but also a nuclear disaster (or Ukraine’s nuclear power plants must be shut down, without a perspective to be launched soon again). 5) Coal and gas plants also supply heat for larger cities, this will be another huge problem in just 6 months. 6) All because someone in the White House and in the Chancellory decided to play “escalation management”. Helmer also described how the loss of power will triggers a mass exodus from cities, as has happened with Kharkiv, and will also cripple the military, since many activities rely on electrical power and it seems vanishingly unlikely that there are all that many backup generators. The refugee flood will trigger an internal and potentially an external crisis. Helmer pointed out that one check on the otherwise predictable movement of citizens to the western Ukraine would be that men would be subject to being captured and sent to the front lines. But as he explained last week: Moscow sources believe the operational plan of the General Staff, agreed by the Kremlin since last month’s election, is to depopulate Kharkov and the surrounding region north to Sumy, and press equally hard in the centre (Dniepropetrovsk) and the south (Odessa). For maps of the campaign so far, click. According to a Moscow source, debate over operational priorities in the political and military strategy is muted. “This time round,” the source believes, “the General Staff aims not to suspend the attacks, not to relieve the pace, so that the Ukrainian utilities cannot repair or restore power supplies — no repeat of the first phase of the electric war which stopped at the end of 2022.” Now admittedly hitting the big power generating plant in Kiev seems at odds with this idea of which cities to knock out when. But Russia is also dealing with the structure of the power supplies. One assumes the strike on Kiev’s plant was an efficient way to go about the de-electrification, given its size and importance, even if cutting Kiev’s power was otherwise later on the list. From the current lead story in the Financial Times: Russia has destroyed Kyiv’s largest power plant as president Volodymyr Zelenskyy chided Ukraine’s western partners for “turning a blind eye” to his country’s need for more air defences.. The Trypilska thermal power plant 50km south of Kyiv, which so far was protected by air defences, was completely destroyed in the attack, officials said. The plant provided electricity to millions of people in Kyiv, Cherkasy and Zhytomyr regions…. Oleh Syniehubov, governor of Kharkiv, said 10 missiles had struck the north-eastern region, knocking out power to more than 200,000 residents. Kharkiv, which borders Russia’s Belgorod region, has been pummelled by missiles, rockets and drones in recent weeks. Ukrenergo, Ukraine’s national transmission system operator, said power substations and generation facilities were damaged and that emergency shutdown schedules were imposed in the Kharkiv region. It called on Ukrainians to limit the use of electrical appliances from 7pm to 10pm, when it predicted a shortage of electricity might occur because solar power plants, carrying much of the load after Thursday’s attack, would decrease. Some additional visuals and detail: The Financial Times article includes much rending of hair and garments over the failure of the US to approve additional Ukraine, which is depicted as contributing to Ukraine’s inability to defend itself. But as many commentators have pointed out, money won’t magic weapons or trained men into existence. It would take well over a year to produce the needed armaments, even before getting to the wee problem of competing demand (Israel and Europe restocking). Helmer included later in his early April post: An unofficial Moscow source comments: “For the time being, the campaign is likely to leave enough lights on in Lvov to lure the displaced easterners there, and generate all sorts of communal friction. The westward process will repeat itself until Lvov and other border areas are huge refugee camps facing a bunch of nervous Poles, Romanians, Moldovans, etc. We’ll see what happens to Euro solidarity then.” In a related sighting, a mercenary with two years in service in Ukraine (!!!) talks out of school about US and Ukraine performance. Do click through to read the full text: It does not surprise me to learn that Azovites are (often? always?) posturing cowards. But those that run away sadly to live to see another day. Except here, the Russians will make diligent efforts to round them up. And Banderite love for Nazi insignia as tattoos will make them easy to identify. |
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