Trouble does not teach

While the Armed Forces of Ukraine and the energy industry are fighting, the energy committee in the Office of the President of Ukraine is only occupied with controlling financial flows

It is worth noting that the difference between us and the enemy can be seen even in proverbs. In Russian they say: "If the thunder isn't roaring, the peasant won't cross himself." Their habit of solving problems is like this: you can cross yourself and continue to do what you were doing. In the Ukrainian language, the saying is different: "Trouble will teach." This is closer to the European tradition of analyzing problems in order to prevent them in the future.

Trouble taught

In the middle of winter, it is still too early to summarize, because there is still much to be done. However, one can see who was taught by troubles and who managed to prepare or adapt.

The energy system withstood mass attacks, despite all the plans of the Russians. One blackout after 12 attacks lasted for several hours, energy workers always find a way to recover and restore power, albeit with interruptions and blackouts. No matter what happens next, this achievement of repairmen and dispatchers will be studied in order to prepare for future wars and opposition to the Russian "Gerasimov doctrine". The country was never completely blacked out.

The authorities began to look for the right words, preparing citizens for attacks: talk about the seriousness of the situation, describe all negative scenarios and warn about possible interruptions with water, heat, and communication. The Ukrainians reacted as usual, namely, people adjusted the flow of purchased generators, Starlinks, and batteries. The government was even forced to cancel the corruption scheme and allow duty-free import of all generators, not just generators from the list of the Ministry of Energy. After all, the Ukrainians have organized a huge flow of equipment, such that one cannot control it.

The leaders of cities and communities finally came out of the state of confusion and instead of hysterical calls for "evacuation", began to think and prepare for long-term shutdowns. I am not talking about the advertised "points of invincibility", they were created, rather, for the "United News" telethon. It is about the real inviolability of key services — heat and water supply. The first large generators capable of powering a water utility or heat and power utility have already been ordered or are on their way to cities with millions of people. The understanding of how critical infrastructure power came to the mayors thanks to many hours of service outages. However, they did comprehend this crucial factor, as the disaster taught them.

Fuel traders have also prepared and are publicly assuring that they are ready to meet the increased demand for generator fuel. This happened because the experience of the fuel crisis taught us, and supplies to Ukraine are now much more stable.

Ukrainian energy workers were finally able to come to an agreement with international partners, and some of the necessary equipment is either on its way to our country or is being manufactured. Already in the spring, the first autotransformers, which are the most critical equipment destroyed by the Russians, may arrive in Ukraine. It is manufactured artificially, over many months and costs tens of millions of dollars.

At this part of the conversation, it should have ended and a summary should have been drawn up, but we are not working in the mentioned telethon, so we will continue the analysis. It is not difficult to catch the trend, and what is clearly visible is that those who are not burdened with important powers are the best prepared.

Government officials look like a Russian peasant.

They crossed themselves and forgot

The only real coordination center that has authority spent half of the winter engaged in other tasks. I wrote about the work of this committee back in the fall: it was created in the president's office under the leadership of deputy Andrii Yermak and Rostyslav Shurma and consists of people who know how to spend money and find the guilty.

The first fright from the missile strikes in this group of comrades passed quickly. While the energy industry was looking for a way out of the situation, the "energy committee" continued its work in a less public field, in particular by putting the balance of cash flows under control. There is something to brag about, but these results will not be reported in the “United News” telethon.

Now, under the control of the office-friendly president of Naftogaz of Ukraine, all the regional gas companies will be managed by a new company whose purchases can be hidden from the Prozorro system. They did not want to transfer them under the control of the operator of the gas transportation network "GTSOU" - Gas Transmission System Operator of Ukraine, to which the regional gas company owed billions of hryvnias. After all, they still cannot put "their" person there, and foreigners constantly demand some kind of control and corporate management. 

The nationalized Zaporizhtransformator already has new management. Well, it is not really new, it is the same one that worked for Hryhoryshyn, only now it reports to the second floor of Bankova Street. Of course, there is currently no money for liquidity and the production of transformers for the factory, which is located within the distance of artillery fire, but maybe they will appear after victory? The issue of independent management of this plant can also be delayed and resolved at the last minute.

The state-owned (and nationalized) assets of Oblenergos will also be collected under one roof and will be transferred to the newly created holding "Ukrainian Distribution Grids". In addition, Rostyslav Shurma promised to make this holding "an example of how to properly structure the management of specialized companies." This example can be understood - lack of external control, but excellent manual management.

Thus, the strategy of placing energy companies under sole control (about which I wrote) is being implemented in full steam. When it comes to money, the committee in the president's office thinks strategically.

What "manual" management leads to, you can understand very well. A vivid example is the long-controlled State Enterprise National Nuclear Energy Generating Company "Energoatom", which found itself in constant procurement scandals and is actually bankrupt.

Apart from that, it is relevant to mention the office and ministry-friendly regulator that wrote the rules of operation during the heating season in such a way that 1.5 GW of gas-fired generating capacity does not operate due to lack of access to gas. To reduce the number of outages for citizens, a dozen private heating plants could start generating electricity from gas, they just need access to the Naftogaz of Ukraine resource. At the beginning of the year, such a system worked, today, due to errors in the by-laws, CHPs do not work and are waiting for those people who will manage them effectively.

At the same time, the prime minister is content with statements about a "difficult season" and actually ignores strategic issues. He discreetly observes the occupation of the energy industry, and it is not even clear from his serious face whether he is a stoic or a fatalist.

International partners, on whose money we live, very politely hint that the crawling occupation of the industry should be stopped. They demand the appointment of supervisory boards and continuation of corporatization. They even promise to give money for gas for this.

However, all this currently has no effect. The new team uses a simple way of communicating with foreigners, as Poroshenko's political legacy. This new team prefers to just keep quiet, delay the decision and demand money at the last moment "because otherwise Putin will win." In addition, even the visit to Davos was used by Rostyslav Shurma not to attract financing, but to justify the nationalization of companies.

Lost opportunities

The problem is that when all the efforts of the government and the office of the president are used to find money for "people close to them", our opportunities are lost again. Now I am not even talking about the country's reputation. As long as the shadow committee occupies the places where money flows are expected, there is no real coordination for the help our country needs. The energy industry will not strengthen by itself, for this we need government officials who are able to learn something new, effective and useful for our country, not cross themselves.

The energy headquarters of a smart person who knows how to do his job would not focus on copying the management methods of the early oligarchs, but on using the opportunities that are available right now.

This headquarters should finally start the work of the "Energy Support Fund", which was created in the European Commission in the spring (!) of last year. Before the first massive shelling, the documentation of the fund was not processed and reviewed, now the Ministry of Energy is slowly dealing with it, not understanding how it is possible to use the money, where the budgets do not have the usual columns "mine" and "send money to higher echelons of power, because I was asked."

By the end of the year, an effective energy headquarters would have had all the necessary legal documents and evidence needed to impose sanctions against the Russian nuclear industry. After the summer session of the UN Security Council, the issue of nuclear sanctions was again forgotten. For the Yermak-McFaul Expert Group on Russian Sanctions, this is too difficult, and for Minister German Galushchenko, who worked a lot with Derkach, who is now subject to sanctions, it is obviously out of time.

An efficiently working energy headquarters would collect all available offers from foreign partners who are ready to provide equipment, protect substations, and find financing for support projects. In addition, coordination of energy aid is more difficult than coordination of weapons, because there are more players and each has its own specifics.

All this is important not only in order to survive. Citizens, most of whom are not going to flee, have shown that they are ready to stand. All this is important to "prepare for the next year, not just months." The president is right when he says that it is necessary to prepare. However, to really be ready for the next energy wars, it is important to learn something useful, to acquire important skills that would be crucial for our country, and not just cross yourself.

Read this article in russian and Ukrainian.