Ukraine’s power sector in turmoil over claims of ‘political’ purge

The firing of the head of Ukraine’s national electricity grid operator has sparked a rebellion at the top of the company, with two board members announcing their resignation in protest at the decision.
In a statement issued Tuesday, Daniel Dobbeni and Peder Andreasen said they would quit their supervisory roles at Ukrenergo after the dismissal of CEO Volodymyr Kudrytsky, which had occurred just hours earlier.
The pair, who have both previously helmed Europe’s electricity operators’ network, said the decision “is politically motivated” and that “there are no valid grounds for it.” The duo claimed they had seen a political campaign to delegitimize his leadership up close.
“We felt political pressure and observed constant attempts to bypass the competition to appoint people whose professional qualities were doubtful to the Management Board of the Company,” they wrote. “We regularly received reports from the Company’s management during meetings about the negative impact on the Company’s reputation of anonymous sources in social media and pressure on employees from law enforcement agencies.”
Kudrytsky was dismissed from his role late Monday evening after the Ukrenergo board, which is made up of three independent members and three state representatives, voted to end his tenure leading the country’s power grid. The network is facing a crisis as a result of Russian strikes on critical infrastructure.
In a missive released later Tuesday, Kudrytsky said he had called for an emergency meeting of the Ukrenergo board to dispute the decision, saying the stated reasoning — that he had failed to maintain the network’s security in the face of Moscow’s drones and missiles — was false.
“Recently, a campaign to discredit Ukrenergo was launched in anonymous Telegram channels and the mass media,” he said. “I asked the press service to collect these publications — a thick catalog of artificially spread, almost identical and unsubstantiated messages, aimed at destroying the company’s image, was the result.”
Despite that, Ukraine’s network is facing a dire situation. Speaking to POLITICO last week, Ukrainian Energy Minister German Galushchenko warned that his country is “really on the eve of probably the hardest winter in the history of the country” as a result of the power shortages. Ukraine’s allies have donated hundreds of millions of dollars worth of support for the energy system, which will come under strain as demand for heating and electricity rises in the colder months.
Ukraine’s Ministry of Energy did not immediately reply to a request for comment on Tuesday.
The decision to fire Kudrytsky comes just weeks after Galushchenko’s deputy, Oleksandr Kheil, was arrested on corruption charges over alleged bribes linked to the country’s state coal mining industry.
Hours before the board meeting, rumors of the move were leaked to local media, with Interfax Ukraine reporting allies of Kudrytsky were hoping opposition to the decision in the energy industry would stop the campaign to oust him.
Kudrytsky took the reins at Ukrenergo in August 2020, overseeing the electricity network’s disconnection from the Russian grid and alignment with the EU’s standards.
The 38-year-old has reportedly long had a difficult relationship with Galushchenko and, according to Ukrainian outlets, survived a previous attempt to have him dismissed from the role.
“Ukrenergo was the only large state enterprise not under the control of the Ministry of Energy,” said Andrii Zhupanyn, a Ukrainian parliament member from President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s governing Servant of the People party and a member of the parliamentary energy committee. “The motivation could be to dismiss someone who wasn’t under their control and replace him with someone they can tell what to do.”
Veronika Melkozerova contributed to this report.