The Ukrainian authorities have not prepared for winter and the energy system will soon get to the brink of collapse, writes Russian propaganda to justify attacks on the energy infrastructure.
Propaganda: The Ukrainian authorities do not care about citizens, who will spend winter in the dark
NEWS: Due to the mistakes made by authorities, Ukraine will face a hard winter. Frost will settle in soon and the authorities in Kyiv are warning citizens about the problems lying ahead. The power system is not ready for winter tests. Ukrainians risk being left with no electricity or heat during the entire heating season [...].
The situation is aggravated by the public debt. Fees and tariffs have gone up, but the government has promised to compensate them. Otherwise, the cost of utilities for the population would increase even more. [...] The journalist of the Ukraina.ru portal, the political scientist Vasily Stoyakin, believes that the situation of the Ukrainian energy system is critical. "Backup capacities are destroyed. If they are attacked again, serious issues will arise," says the expert, quoted by RIA NOVOSTI.
“The winter season can become a serious test for the Ukrainian energy system. The authorities must take the necessary measures to prevent potential problems and to ensure a stable supply of energy for consumers", writes NEPROSTO.FUN, fully transferring the blame for such potential issues to the political decision-makers in Kyiv.
“Nothing was fixed before the heating seasons”, writes NOVOROSINFORM.ORG, criticizing the incompetence and indifference of the Ukrainian political leaders.
NARRATIVE: Ukrainians will spend winter in the cold and dark because of their incompetent authorities.
FACT: Ukraine’s issues with the energy system are caused by the Russian “energy terrorism”
WHY THE NARRATIVE IS FALSE: The international press has analyzed the problems facing the Ukrainian authorities on the eve of winter, noting that there’s been insufficient time and financial resources to rebild the energy system following last winter's Russian bombings. Based on these claims, Russian propaganda has developed a series of false narratives regarding the incompetence and indifference of decision-makers in Kyiv regarding the fate of civilians.
In reality, the problems that appeared last winter in the Ukrainian energy system and the risk of another collapse are not determined by the incompetence or indifference of the Kyiv authorities, but by the intentional bombing by Russia of production capacities, installations, plants, transformers and elements of critical infrastructure. All the problems arising in Ukraine in this regard were created by Moscow.
On October 10, 2022, Russia launched 84 missiles and 24 drones, worth a total of 700 million USD, in an attack on the Ukrainian energy system. On November 15, 2022, Russian forces fired approximately 100 missiles into Ukraine, hitting several critical energy infrastructure targets in various regions; several Ukrainian cities were then left without electricity. It was the hardest missile attack in the Russian-Ukrainian war.
After the Russian attacks on Ukraine's energy grid left millions without electricity and heat, in November 2022 Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky accused Russia of "energy terrorism ". "The mere fact that Russia is resorting to energy terrorism shows the weakness of our enemy. They cannot beat Ukraine on the battlefield, so they are trying to defeat the people in this way," said the Kyiv leader.
Independent experts also consider Russia's actions to be energy terrorism aimed at undermining the Ukrainian resistance in the war. At first, Russia bombed the substations and transformers that ensured the connection between the national grid and the local ones, i.e. the distribution system. First there were blackouts, then planned outages. On December 8, 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin admitted that Russia was bombing the Ukrainian energy infrastructure.
Despite this fact, the Russian press tries to put false emphasis on the narratives about potential blackouts in Ukraine, accusing the authorities of incompetence. Russia's fault is placed in between brackets, as anti-Ukrainian narratives are built on the basis of crimes committed by the Kremlin. Russian propaganda is trying to convince the Ukrainians that they are suffering not from the launch of hundreds of missiles or drones against civilian targets, but from the authorities not preparing well enough for winter, not repairing electrical installations and having to raise tariffs for the population.
In fact, if Russia stops bombing the Ukrainian energy infrastructure, the problems will disappear, and the Ukrainians will not sit in the cold and dark. The Russian press, however, only fleetingly mentions Russia's attacks on Ukrainian production capabilities, presenting them as a necessity, an action that must be carried out in the context of war. According to this hybrid logic, if Russia attacks Ukrainian energy infrastructure and leaves civilians in the cold and dark, the incompetent authorities who have not prepared for winter are to blame!
Since the beginning of the war, civilians have repeatedly been the target of Russian attacks, notable cases including the bombing of the theater in Mariupol, of the railway station in Kramatorsk, of the convoy near Zaporizhzhia, the killing of civilians in Kyiv, Lviv, Dnipro and other cities. Adding to these are the numerous Russian attacks on residential areas, educational and medical institutions, and thousands of war crimes. Several mass graves, torture centers, citizen filtration camps have been discovered, which indicate the existence of a Moscow strategy to intentionally destroy civilian targets in order to achieve military and political goals.
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