In 2023, Ukrainian officials could have focused on finding and acquiring air defense equipment to protect Ukraine's energy sector or on diversifying it by purchasing gas-fired power plants. However, they chose concrete protection of power facilities and spent at least UAH 50 billion on it. This is described in of Focus.ua's article "Why the Protection of Energy Facilities Didn't Work".
In particular, the publication notes that the cost of a Gepard anti-aircraft system is about 80 million hryvnias per unit, and the cost of one Patriot battery is about 40 billion hryvnias. That is, the cost of concreting the energy sector is equivalent to 600 Gepard units or more than one Patriot battery.
Small gas-fired power plants could also be purchased and distributed throughout the country. According to the estimates of Andriy Gerus, chairman of the Committee on Energy, Housing and Utilities, the cost of this option for Ukraine was $540 million, which is at least half of what was spent on the "concrete concept.
The article reminds us that in July 2023, Mustafa Nayyem described the concrete defense as "a historic project that we are doing to protect our buildings from missile attacks. There will be no analogues in the world of such structures that we are building in Ukraine. I'm talking about substations that will be protected from missile attacks." And in February 2024, before the missile attacks on the energy sector, Oleksandr Kubrakov said during the forum "Ukraine. The Year 2024" forum, Oleksandr Kubrakov stated that there was "confirmed evidence that the second level of protection helped us get through this winter," emphasizing the need to continue with the third level.
However, Ukrhydroenergo reported a loss of 20% of its generating capacity as a result of the March Russian strikes. DTEK Group said that 80% of its thermal power units were damaged in the attacks. The state-owned Centrenergo said it had lost 100% of its generation.
According to Energy Minister Herman Galushchenko, Ukraine lost 7 GW of electricity generation capacity as a result of these attacks. "And they also destroyed a number of high-voltage transformers at substations that transmit electricity," the energy minister said.
On April 11, the Verkhovna Rada summoned the main officials responsible for the protection of critical infrastructure, Oleksandr Kubrakov and Mustafa Nayem. However, the officials did not appear at the meeting.