The head of Ukraine’s electric company was fired on Monday, the utility said, amid allegations of political meddling and just a week after a major Russian aerial attack on the power grid caused blackouts in Kyiv and other cities.
Volodymyr Kudrytsky — who was appointed to head Ukrenergo in 2020, before the full-scale Russian invasion — was removed as CEO after a vote from the supervisory board on Monday, according to a statement the board released Tuesday.
Several Ukrainian media outlets including Ukrainska Pravda, Forbes and Censor.net, citing government sources, said Mr. Kudrytsky had been blamed for failing to complete defensive fortifications at power plants before Russia’s Aug. 26 strike — the largest targeting energy infrastructure since the 2022 invasion.
Mr. Kudrytsky in a Facebook post on Tuesday denied that he had been fired for failing to protect the infrastructure, and said he had been the victim of a smear campaign by unidentified people trying to gain control of the utility.
The firing has ignited a potentially significant political fight over the country’s energy sector, which has been one of Russia’s main targets over the last few years as it attempts to undermine the Ukrainian economy and domestic support for the war.
Two members of Ukrenergo’s supervisory board, Daniel Dobbeni and Peder Andreasen, said in statements that they had resigned in protest over the firing, calling the decision “politically motivated.”
On Tuesday, four government officials also submitted their resignation requests to the Ukrainian parliament, according to the parliament’s speaker Ruslan Stefanchuk. They include key figures, like Oleksandr Kamyshin, Ukraine’s minister for strategic industries, and Denys Maliuska, Ukraine’s justice minister, as well as the environmental minister and the chairman of the state property fund.
Mr. Kudrytsky’s firing could also alienate donors who have helped keep the power system afloat, Svyatoslav Pavliuk from Energy Efficient Cities of Ukraine, an advocacy group for the energy industry, wrote in a post on Facebook. “Consequences of such decisions will be major,” he said.
On Monday, Russian shelling damaged one of two electric lines providing power to the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, raising risks to the reactor cooling pumps just as the United Nations nuclear regulator planned a visit to the site.
The Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, the largest in Europe, has been idle for much of the war, after it was captured by Russian forces in early 2022, but still requires power for cooling. It relies on overhead lines from the Ukrainian grid that cross the front line and are at risk.
Ukraine’s nuclear energy company, Energoatom, said in a statement that the line damaged in Monday’s bombardment raised that risk, since if the second power source is also cut, the plant would have to rely on backup diesel generators, as it has for short periods several times since Russia’s invasion.
Similar damage happened in the late August attack, which forced four nuclear reactors in Ukrainian government-controlled territory to switch off temporarily as a safety measure.
The director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Rafael Grossi, was in Kyiv Tuesday ahead of a planned visit to the Zaporizhzhia station. Mr. Grossi wrote on social media that his goal was “to continue assistance and help prevent a nuclear accident.”
After two years of strikes on energy infrastructure, rolling blackouts now affect all of Ukraine. Two major hydroelectric power plants have been destroyed or heavily damaged, and about half of the country’s thermal power plants’ generating capacity has been destroyed, along with damage to transformer stations.
With power out for many hours a day in most homes, solar panels and backup batteries are out of stock with dozens of Ukrainian companies. In some cases, the wait time for a purchase is more than a month. Most apartments are already dark every evening.
Nataliia Novosolova contributed reporting.
