Lack of Air Defense Allowed Russia to Damage Half of Ukraine’s Energy Infrastructure

Russia has caused damage to half of Ukraine’s energy facilities, said Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Dmytro Kuleba in an interview with Foreign Policy.

He emphasized that Russia has deliberately used missiles to target Ukraine’s energy infrastructure and pointed out that if another was going through this, it would have looked much worse.

“I will dare to say that if another country suffered this scale of energy destruction, it would look much, much worse than Ukraine. We hold on because we have learned a lot. We are resilient; we know what the stakes are,” said Kuleba.

The Minister added that Ukraine has to work in different directions simultaneously in order to survive.

“But just to give an understanding to your viewers, half our energy system is damaged and we still have to run the country, run the war effort, and rally the world’s support,” Kuleba added.

The Minister noted that delivering the much-needed Patriot batteries for Ukraine would have boosted the Ukrainian army’s morale.

Previously, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy stated that Ukraine needs 25 Patriot systems to cover all of Ukraine. But Ukraine’s Foreign Minister, Dmytro Kuleba, told The Washington Post in an interview that Ukraine will focus now on obtaining 7 Patriot systems as quickly as possible. As of now, Germany has offered to send one more Patriot system to Ukraine, leaving Ukraine on a journey to find at least 6 more systems to protect its civilians and infrastructure.