This week THREE containers were loaded with winter clothing and relief commodities for the 1.7 MILLION displaced Ukrainians who had to flee from Russia’s invasion and anarchy. Here is an article that speaks about the coming terrors of winter in Ukraine without the energy resources for warmth. Not only has Russia cut the delivery of natural gas but it has bombed and destroyed the coal mines of Donetsk. Russia’s evil continues to seek to destroy Ukraine’s sovereignty–and the western governments sit in wilful delusion that they will not be touched by Russian anarchy!
May I Borrow Your Shower? Ukraine Braces for Winter Cold
By Ladka Bauerova and Kateryna Choursina Sep 18, 2014 7:31 AM CT
Since Kiev’s authorities started turning off communal hot water supplies last month to save natural gas, people with their own boilers have found unwashed friends on the doorstep armed with a towel and a bar of soap.
Yulia Mikulska, an accountant from the Ukrainian capital, had gone weeks without a hot shower before she visited her brother’s summer house, which is fitted with an electric water heater. “I finally got to wash myself like a human being!” the elegant 38-year-old said.
Ukrainians are resorting to “wash visits” along with school closures and DIY insulation as the nation of 45 million braces for a winter without enough gas. Authorities, already fighting an insurgency in the east, are scrambling to build stockpiles in a country where temperatures can drop to 20 below zero Celsius (negative 4 degrees Fahrenheit) after Russia, the main supplier, stopped shipments in June.
Gas storage is now about half-full at 16.3 billion cubic meters, according to data from the state-run energy company NAK Naftogaz Ukrainy. Even combined with Naftogaz’s domestic production, that’s not enough to cover the country’s needs during the coldest months.
Kievenergo, which provides heat for the capital, said it may delay supplying customers until the start of November, when average temperatures are near zero, and stop at the end of March. By providing heat for one month less than usual, it will save 5.5 million cubic meters of gas a day.
Colder Houses
Homes will have to be kept cooler, with the thermostat set at 19 degrees Celsius, 5 degrees lower than usual, according to Naftogaz Chief Executive Officer Andriy Kobolyev. Authorities have also warned of power cuts.
Road and rail links to the war-ravaged provinces of Donetsk and Luhansk, where most of the country’s coal mines are located, have been damaged in the conflict, affecting supplies. Coal supplies about 28 percent of the country’s primary energy consumption, which includes heat and power, and gas provides 40 percent, according to the U.S. Energy Administration.
“The main problem for thermal power generation is coal supply,” said DTEK Holding BV Chief Executive Officer Maksim Timchenko, whose company has operations in the troubled area.
Ukraine had been importing more than half its gas from Russia until June, when OAO Gazprom cut supplies over a price dispute. The Russian exporter says Naftogaz owes it $5.3 billion and must settle part of the debt and pay advance installments before it will restart deliveries. Ukraine says the sum is too high after Russia raised the price by 81 percent in April.
Energy ‘Blackmail’
The European Union has been attempting to broker an agreement since May. Three-way talks in Berlin are tentatively planned for next week.
The U.S. and EU this month announced deeper sanctions against Moscow for backing rebels in eastern Ukraine with weapons and troops, an allegation Russia denies. Russia shouldn’t use the gas dispute as “blackmail,” EU Energy Commissioner Guenther Oettinger said last month.
In the western Ukrainian city of Lviv, schools will likely close during the coldest months because there’s not enough fuel to heat them. The city has introduced a 6-day week and canceled vacations in October and March to make up the time.
Oleksandr Poltoratskyi, director of an elementary school with 700 pupils in Kiev, decided to forgo a plan to buy laptops and spent the money on a boiler instead. “That way we’ll be sure to have hot water for the kids, even if there’s rationing,” he said.
Soviet-Era Frugality
Naftogaz’s Kobolyev advised households to revert to frugal practices from Soviet times. They should glue strips of paper to the inside of window frames to keep warm air in, he told weekly newspaper Dzerkalo Tyzhnya. Kharkiv’s city council has called on residents to volunteer to help insulate apartment buildings and pay for the repairs out of their own pockets.
Mikulska, the accountant who showered at her brother’s place, said that installing a boiler is too expensive so she’s been heating up water in an electric tea kettle to wash herself and her 9-year-old daughter. She managed to color her hair using a kettle to rinse out the dye. If there’s a power cut, she says she won’t have any heat at all.
“Imagine washing your child if there’s no heating,” she said. “Now that there’s some sun we can dry things, but later, if our heaters are cold, what are we going to do?”
To contact the reporter on this story: Ladka Bauerova in Prague at lbauerova@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Will Kennedy at wkennedy3@bloomberg.net; James M. Gomez at jagomez@bloomberg.net Alex Devine, Scott Rose
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