KYIV – While other significant developments have dominated the news in recent weeks, such as the responses to the COVID-19 pandemic, or the much-awaited release of new financial support for Ukraine by the International Monetary Fund, the enduring saga of competition among stakeholders and profiteers within and around Ukraine’s lucrative energy sector also merits attention.
Even a cursory overview of this complex subject shows that extraordinary things have been happening.
Since the spring, a struggle for influence and control in this vital area has intensified among the oligarchic stakeholders, Ihor Kolomoisky, Rinat Akhmetov and others, including perhaps interested parties in President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s political entourage. Government posts have been reshuffled. Imports of electricity from Russia have been renewed and the production of nuclear energy reduced in favor of a greater temporary reliance on coal.