Ukraine says 'toughest winter over' as power shortage overcome

Power supply difficulties have been overcome for the time being - unless new Russian attacks damage the system, the head of the utility Ukrenergo, Volodymyr Kudrytskyi, said on Ukrainian television on Wednesday.
In the past 25 days, there have been no more power shortages and no deficit is foreseeable, he added.
"The hardest winter in our history is over," he said in Kiev. "The power system is now able to meet existing consumption, and that's a very good sign for all of us."
Kudrytskyi attributed the improved situation to successful repairs to the power grid and the completed maintenance of Ukraine's nuclear power plants. Hydropower plants supplied more electricity because of the spring floods. Higher temperatures meant lower consumption.
Since last October, Russia had repeatedly fired missiles to deliberately destroy Ukraine's electricity and heat supply. This led to outages of electricity, district heating and water for hours and days in all parts of the country.
However, the Ukrainians repeatedly managed to patch up the broken grid. Generators for power generation and transformers were sent from abroad. Imports of electricity also helped, Kudrytskyi said.
"Of course, new attacks, if they are on a large scale, can change this balance," he said. "But if there are no large-scale attacks, we see that our power system can manage without deficits."