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By Aliaksandr Kudrytski and Olesia Safronova
Russia attacked Ukraine’s natural-gas infrastructure overnight, dealing a fresh blow to output as President Volodymyr Zelenskiy prepares for talks in Washington.
The Ukrainian leader is set to visit the US capital after Moscow ramped up strikes against his country’s energy facilities, knocking out nearly 60% of gas production this month. Apart from holding talks with President Donald Trump, Zelenskiy is expected to meet with US energy companies and producers of weapons and air defense systems.
Ukraine’s biggest private power producer DTEK halted gas extraction in the central Poltava region due to damage from a barrage of Russian drones and missiles, the company said in a Telegram post Thursday. State-owned energy company Naftogaz Group said a number of critical facilities had halted operations, while four employees were injured.
The overnight attack caused fires at Naftogaz facilities of such scale that rescue workers couldn’t approach them to start extinguishing the blazes, said a person familiar with the situation, asking not to be named discussing sensitive information.
“This directly affects the volumes of the company’s own gas production, which we are forced to compensate through imports,” Naftogaz CEO Sergii Koretskyi said in a post on Facebook Thursday.
Zelenskiy warned that Russia would intensify its attacks on Ukraine’s energy systems this fall, urging allies to pressure Moscow with sanctions and by boosting Ukraine’s long-range strike capabilities.
“That is exactly what I will be discussing today and tomorrow in Washington,” Zelenskiy said Thursday in a post on social media platform X.
Read More: Russia Knocks Out More Than Half of Ukraine’s Gas Output
European gas prices opened higher following the overnight attack, suggesting concern in the market as the heating season gets under way. Prospects of higher gas imports from the European Union to Ukraine already caused a brief price rally in European gas following the Russian strikes this month.
Europe has entered the cold season with gas inventories lower than historic norms, keeping traders on high alert. That’s in part because the continent now sources much of its fuel from a wider range of global suppliers after Russia slashed pipeline flows following its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Ukraine’s daily gas consumption jumped 20% in the past three days as households use more gas for heating, according to the deputy head of the supervisory board of Naftogaz, Nataliya Boyko.
— With assistance from Elena Mazneva and Priscila Azevedo Rocha
(Updates with information on Naftogaz damage from fourth paragraph)
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