Maxim Timchenko, CEO of DTEK, Ukraine's biggest private power company.Anton Skyba/The Globe and Mail
Ukraine’s biggest private power company, DTEK, is appealing for financing and spare equipment to rebuild its system after a devastating series of Russian attacks nearly destroyed its ability to produce electricity.
Five unusually accurate drone and missile attacks between March 11 and May 8 eradicated about 90 per cent of the capacity of six DTEK coal-burning plants, triggering blackouts in several regions. The company said that the successful attacks highlight Ukraine’s severe shortage of air-defence weapons as the Russian offensive gains momentum.
“Almost all repaired equipment was destroyed or damaged again,” DTEK’s chief executive officer, Maxim Timchenko, told reporters on Tuesday. “We have to get out of the cycle of repair and destruction, meaning we can lose everything if we don’t have proper air-defence systems.”
His plea for help came as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met in Kyiv, marking their first face-to-face encounter since Congress last month passed a long-delayed US$61-billion aid package for Ukraine. The funds will pay for badly needed weapons, such as American-made Patriot surface-to-air defensive missiles capable of destroying Russian missiles and fighter-bombers well before they reach their targets.
“We know this is a challenging time,” Mr. Blinken said, “but we also know that, in the near term, the assistance is now on the way, some of it has already arrived and more will be arriving. And that’s going to make a real difference against the ongoing Russian aggression on the battlefield.”
Mr. Timchenko said that the Russian air strikes are becoming more accurate, and that the Russian military’s strategy has changed. Near the start of the full-scale invasion, which began in February, 2022, the Russians mainly attacked the electricity transmission system in an effort to make Ukraine freeze in the dark during the winter. Those attacks were only partly successful.
Today, the Russians are attacking the generating plants themselves. The May 8 attack was particularly destructive, with three of DTEK’s coal-burners shutting down. “For two of these power stations, it was 100 per cent efficiency for Russian missiles, [meaning] all of them reached their target,” Mr. Timchenko said.
Workers clear the rubble after a Russian missile attack at DTEK's power plant in Ukraine on April 2.Evgeniy Maloletka/The Associated Press
He said that DTEK could generate around 5,000 megawatt hours (Mwh) before the recent attacks. Today it can produce just 600 Mwh. The immediate goal, he said, was to rebuild a “significant portion” of the preattack capacity, “subject to effective air-defence systems and getting the equipment and financial support we need.”
The effort will see DTEK ask European power companies to donate spare equipment, such as transformers from old power plants, and try to raise funds for new equipment.
The five attacks since March forced DTEK and other power-supply operators, such as Ukrenergo, the state-owned transmission company, to institute temporary blackouts and ration electricity to energy-intensive industrial companies. Households were urged to reduce consumption. Extra electricity imports from Europe helped to keep the lights on.
Mr. Timchenko said that while power supply to industrial users was cut back, supplies to crucial customers, such as military installations and hospitals, were unaffected.
DTEK executives will attend the Ukraine Recovery Conference in June in Berlin, where it will make the case for private foreign investment in Ukraine’s power system to help it recover.
Since the start of the war, DTEK’s plants have been attacked 180 times, killing three workers and injuring 51 of them. The company is owned by SCM Ltd., controlled by Ukrainian billionaire Rinat Akhmetov. In spite of the destruction or seizure by Russia of many of his assets, including his steel plant in Mariupol, in Ukraine’s southeast, he remains Ukraine’s wealthiest man, according to Forbes magazine.