— What is the reason of escalation of the situation regarding coal, blockade, and relations with OADLR?

— The government and all other power structures do not want to adopt a decision on definition of uncontrolled territories as occupied ones. We will keep indispensably encountering this problem, because from the beginning of the war Russia's actions were not defined in legislation as aggression in accordance with the UN General Assembly Resolution of December, 14, 1974 on definition of aggression. Accordingly, no martial law was imposed, at least on part of the territory of Ukraine. So, controlled by the enemy territories should be legislatively defined as occupied ones, it would become the basis to develop an appropriate regulatory framework based on international law. But this did not happen; the government keeps uncertainty hereby playing on Russian side in its hybrid war against Ukraine, since, according to canons of such war, the uncertainty contributes to generation of chaos inside a victim country, disrupts its potential of resistance to an aggressor. It also leads to reaction of the active part of the society which does not agree with the state of affairs.

The inaction of the authorities leads to the activities of the activists. The idea of a blockade is not so much aimed at full blocking of the occupied territories, because the blockade in the full sense of that meaning is impossible by only non-state capabilities, but it is a mechanism of urging state actors to clearness. Moreover, the state structures should not only just make a certain decision but also act.

— How timely is the blockade, if to think with not political, but purely energy-technical categories? 

In my opinion, the activity is ill-timed. At the peak of the winter cold it is not rational to block the coal traffic. It would be worth to wait one more month. I mean only coal segment of trade flows that go through the demarcation line. This plays in favor of destabilization. It is thoughtless to do such a gift to the aggressor destabilizing further situation in the country.

But there are two destabilizing factors: first, blockers' activities, second, government's countermeasures.

— Why does government look as a destabilizer?

— The government that has the low percentage of citizens' support is a destabilizer when it begins to threaten the society with the problems with electricity, rolling blackouts. When the government had not taken appropriate timely solutions, which could make it impossible for "an exchange with goods with the occupied territories" (the Minister of Energy Igor Nasalik said: "We do not trade with the occupiers, but we exchange with goods," ONLINE.UA), now we have an additional political field for destabilization. We should avoid augmentation of conflictogenity. At least, until the end of the heating season.

— Why could we get rid of the Russian gas, but couldn't do this with coal from the OADLR?

— We can do this with coal, too. To a certain extent, it is even easier to do than in case with gas. Moreover, a relevant success formula is known. Corresponding decisions were taken yet in 2015: about the need for re-equipment of power units, which use anthracite coal, to combustion of gas coal. But the reality is that almost nothing has been done. Despite the fact that it should be done in accordance with the current National Security Strategy. It's essential to take into account, in particular p. 4.10 "Ensuring energy security", where certain priorities are defined:

• diversification of sources and routes of energy supply, overcoming of dependence on Russia in energy supplies;

• creation of conditions for reliable energy supply...;

• formation of a system of energy supply to national economy and society for a special period."

The latter is particularly important. What else do you need? But all this is ignored by the President, by the National Security and Defence Council, by the Government.

- Why?

- Perhaps they live in another reality. One more reason is also that 70% of coal generation is concentrated in the hands of Rinat Akhmetov's oligarchic group, which dominates in the coal and electricity sectors distorting the market. He does not want to shift power units of TPPs to non-anthracite types of coal, because it is an issue of additional costs, spendings on national security. But he just does not think in such terms.

In the conflict of national and private interests - Akhmetov won. He assured the officials that, they say, it's not their problem: you need electricity — you will have, but he will decide what coal will be supplied and burned. There are his mines in the occupied territories, so everything looks as it were a part of corporate activities. It was not difficult using the corrupt state apparatus to halt implementation of 2015 plans for re-equipment of anthracite power units, although it is quite a feasible task.

Here is an example. The management of DTEK stated in August 2016 that conversion of thermal units from anthracite to gas coal could take up to 300 days. But "we will not do it in the nearest future. We will focus on stable supply of anthracite". It is worth to recall that there are following threats to energy security among others in the already mentioned "National Security Strategy" :

• distortion of market mechanisms in the energy sector;

• criminalization and corruption in the energy sector.

- Well. But besides DTEK we still have the state "Centrenergo", which represents a lower proportion of coal generation, but it is anyway produced there.

— There has been some progress with "Centrenergo". It is possible to solve the issue of conversion of thermal units for three years. First of all, on the state "Centrenergo", because it is also supplied by anthracite coal from mines located on the occupied territory. Therefore, the informal controllers of anthracite supplies on state-owned power plants were and are private, in particular, Akhmetov's structures. This has preserved the situation.

If in 2015 they had started to work systematically on implementation the program of transition to gas coal, then in 2017, after the end of the heating season, everything would be completed during the summer. Here is the assessment of management of "Centrenergo" in the summer of 2016: "the term of technical re-equipment is up to 9 months taking into account implementation of the project works, the state complex expertise of the project, obtaining permits and commissioning of a boiler". That is, it coincides with the estimates of DTEK. Clearly, there are power units where it is impractical to switch to other brands of coal, but there are not so many those; we would still have a few anthracite blocks, which could be supplied by import of a small volume. And now the situation is not as critical as officials are trying to show.

— Why does the Government do that (the interview had taken place before the Government announced introduction of emergency measures in the energy sector, — ONLINE.UA)?

— I think they pursue a plan, which was promulgated by the Ministry of the Temporarily Occupied Territories, that provides for the reintegration of the OADLR without de-occupation, demilitarization, establishment of full control over the border - that is, follow the scenario of settlement of the internal conflict in Ukraine, but not overcoming the consequences of Russian aggression of hybrid type that has a clear military dimension in the Donbass.

Instead of clarifying the status of the occupied territories by the Parliament, the Government started to push such decision through the "backdoor" - by adopting a corresponding Order at the government level as of January, 11. It does not work.

Now we have a second "tranche" of arguments — they say that we will not outlast without coal from the OADLR, they threaten with power outages.

The state structures began to play a dangerous game, which may turn against them. They have forgotten about the fact that in the current National Security Strategy there is defined a threat - "blocking Ukraine's efforts... to get rid of dependence on monopoly supply of critical raw materials, especially energy resources." Therefore, current state authorities have been transforming through their actions into a threat to national security.

— What would be reasonable, in your opinion, to do now?

— The Parliament should adopt a Law which clearly defines that uncontrolled territories are occupied. After that, it will appear the possibility to find mechanisms of coexistence with the OADLR, where there will be no place for business on the war and the conservation of energy dependence on the Kremlin's puppets. Then the issue of the blockade in the society will be removed, because it will be clear which relationships are accepted and which are not.

Officials should not excite the society with the statements and actions in favor of foreign hybrid fans of "no- Minsk alternative", but do together with parliamentarians their work - to determine the status of the occupied territories in accordance with the logic of the war. If we have a clear position of state power, the matter of unblocking would be also solved automatically.

Another thing is that there are attempts to demonize blockers, but it is forgotten that puppet regimes can just similarly to block coal supplies. They did already so in 2015 and 2016. As soon as they get instructions from Moscow - they will do it again. Going on anthracite dependence, the Government leaves the aggressor the leverage of influence on itself, moreover, it helps him by exciting the society that has already lost trust in state power and identifies it as one more kleptocratic regime, which differs from the previous one with only better knowledge of English.

Olexandr Kurilenko