In March, Russia began to escalate its attacks on Ukraine’s energy facilities with the largest and most sustained series of assaults since the start of the war.
At a press briefing in Washinton, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State in the Bureau of Energy Resources Geoffrey Pyatt praised the recovery response by Ukrainian energy workers, including in Kharkiv, Burshtyn, Krivyi Rih, Dnipro, and Odesa. He also noted the passive protection measures, like engineering fortifications that the United States and its European allies have been helping to support, proved their utility at a number of sites.
“But Putin was able to inflict significant damage as well. And I just want to underline how outrageous it is that the Kremlin continues to target these civilian objects with no military objective, simply to cause pain and suffering among Ukrainian citizens. And we will respond,” he said.
Assistant Secretary Pyatt said the United States and its partners in the G7+ energy sector “will be seeking to mobilize immediate assistance, as we have been doing since October of ’22, when these energy sectors attacks began. We will also be continuing our work to focus on Ukraine’s long-term objective of building a future energy system that is clearer, greener, and fully aligned with European standards.”
“But I want to emphasize also that Putin is failing. We are now at the end of the third winter of Russia’s war against the people of Ukraine. Ukraine has demonstrated tremendous resilience, thanks in large part to the courage of energy workers from companies like Ukrenergo and DTEK,” he said. “The lights have stayed on. Putin has failed in that effort. He has lost Europe as an energy market. And we are committed to ensuring that that failure continues.”
The United States and its partners, declared Assistant Secretary Pyatt, “are going to do everything in our power to ensure that Putin’s war continues to be a strategic failure for the Kremlin, and that the Ukrainians have the resources and the wherewithal they need to prevail and to continue to sustain the extraordinary resilience that they’ve demonstrated up until now.”
