Money for protecting energy facilities was buried in the ground; substations are being shielded from strikes with sandbags

Ukrainian energy facilities were not properly protected from shelling.

This statement was made on the air of the “Kyiv 24” TV channel by Oleksiy Kucherenko, a member of parliament from the Batkivshchyna faction.

The MP claimed that none of the 21 sarcophagi—facilities classified as third-level protection objects—were completed and never will be.

“I note the unprofessional decisions of the government and the military. None of these facilities (21 of them were being built) have been completed. Huge sums of money were simply buried in the ground. Not a single facility was finished, and none will be finished. The prime minister himself admitted this a year ago, when in August he announced that these projects were being mothballed,” Kucherenko said.

The MP believes the money should have been spent on second-level protection facilities. But those were also left unfinished.

“Unfortunately, there was manipulation by officials, first and foremost from Ukrenergo. They simply manipulated and misled… They reported one level of readiness, but in fact it was a completely different level,” the lawmaker stated.

According to him, priority was given to protecting transformer substations of NEC Ukrenergo. But there are also 110 kV transformer substations belonging to regional energy companies (oblenergo), which are practically unprotected. They are simply surrounded with sandbags, and this was done not as part of a state program, but by the owners on their own initiative.

“Powerful Ukrenergo transformers at 330 and 750 kV must be protected at least with second-level defenses. Claims about their protection being 85% complete are manipulations. There is no such 85% readiness,” the MP insisted.

He added that there was no oversight of the construction of protective structures.