Ukrainians Will Be Without Power for Up to 18 Hours a Day: UN Forecast.

UN Monitoring: Ukrainians Face Power Outages of Up to 18 Hours a Day

The UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine forecasts that Ukrainian citizens may face power outages lasting from 4 to 18 hours per day this winter. This forecast was made in the Mission's report.

«There are reasonable grounds to believe that numerous aspects of the military campaign to damage or destroy Ukraine's civilian infrastructure for electricity and heat production and transmission violate fundamental principles of international humanitarian law», the experts noted.

Based on visits by the UNHRMM to 7 damaged or destroyed power plants and 28 settlements, experts concluded that attacks on infrastructure threaten water supply, sanitation, education, healthcare, and Ukraine’s economy. The situation is particularly problematic in urban areas where connection to centralized heating and hot water systems is most common. There is a threat of a lack of heat for millions of Kyiv residents.

According to the experts, energy problems were one of the reasons Ukrainians left the country in the summer of 2024.

Recall that today, September 19, no power restrictions are expected.

Electricity consumption in Ukraine has been increasing since September 9, following the cancellation of planned outage schedules.

The State Agency for Reconstruction and Infrastructure Development intends to install a third level of passive protection at NEC «Ukrenergo» substations. However, international partners do not consider funding for such a project justified before testing this technology. Earlier, the head of «Ukrenergo» Volodymyr Kudrytskyi reported that Ukraine's energy facilities would have triple-level protection against Russian attacks.

Additionally, the European Commission is working to increase the volume of electricity supplies to Ukraine.