By Yuri Osmakovsky | Project Vice Coordinator
After the large-scale missile attack on Ukrainian cities on March 22nd, including Kharkiv/Kharkov, we are again at something we had almost forgotten since the beginning of 2023. Blackouts in Kharkov the current spring reached more than 12 hours in some areas, although they usually last about 6 hours. Smaller air strikes continue periodically to this day. From the mayor's words from early April, "a missile barrage destroyed almost all of Kharkiv’s power-generation capacity." Electricity supply is provided by supply from other regions. Under these conditions, the “black winter” scenario, which everyone was warned about last winter, becomes quite real in 2024-2025, since the heating and energy infrastructure is broken. Everything will depend on the restoration of damaged capacities, the load on nuclear power plants and the availability of excess energy in the EU for its maximum import.
The head of state, in the last month of his five-year term expiring after May 20th, is trying to push through as many unpopular decisions as possible. The most resonant among them is the law on total mobilization, which comes into force on May 18th. It is less known that the National Bank of Ukraine expects a sharp increase in electricity tariffs: the authorities will push through them under the pretext of restoring the country’s energy system after new Russian attacks. What is noteworthy about this is that before the new wave of attacks on the energy system, the Ministry of Energy denied statements about plans to raise electricity prices, but now they are openly talking about preparing such a decision. Already symbolic social support is being cut by the Ukrainian authorities again and again: in the first two months of 2024, one billion hryvnia was allocated for such payments less than in 2023. Thus, 75.3 billion UAH were spent on this from the state budget in January-February 2024, including 38.2 billion in February. In the same months of last year, 76.5 billion UAH were allocated, including in February - 39.9 billion. And the issue is not only the flayer position of the government, which stops payments to displaced people, it is also the banal delay in subsidies, child benefits and other aid.
So, the need for humanitarian aid to the local population is growing again, which we decided to move away from at the beginning of the year in favor of increasing media activity. The community heating point, with equipment bought thanks to the readers during the first war winter, is in perfect order, however purchasing food and medicine for free distribution is much more difficult. Whether we will be able to replenish the organization’s coffers with the necessary funds depends on our audience. We rely on you because this is a situation where there are no small donations!
This report is being written right on the eve of big events for our humble team. On May 15th, in Germany to be celebrated International Conscientious Objectors' Day, and the internationalist Action Week is coming in Prague on May 20th-26th. Our thematic content is expected to be presented at events of many groups from different countries. This will be the first time in the history of the organization that it has left the local underground for a globalwide forum offline.
In the meantime, we have established the cause of the massive pine forest death in the city. It was not a war but climate warming. Our coverage of the catastrophic consequences of gas production under the guise of war and the terrible oil spill after a Russian drone attack on a fuel depot (it is available in Russian and English versions) attracted interest from Climate Action Network activists. We are currently awaiting their proposals on international response measures to draw attention to this abroad. For the search query “environmental crimes of the oil and gas business” in Russian language, our material about this is in first place in the Google results!
We hope to talk about all these matters in more detail in the report for the next season. Stay tuned and thank you for everything what we do for us!
Links:
Project reports on GlobalGiving are posted directly to globalgiving.org by Project Leaders as they are completed, generally every 3-4 months. To protect the integrity of these documents, GlobalGiving does not alter them; therefore you may find some language or formatting issues.
If you donate to this project or have donated to this project, you can receive an email when this project posts a report. You can also subscribe for reports without donating.
