Q: What role does DTEK play in terms of Ukraine’s power generation? How do you continue to operate under the pressures of war and still respond to the demands of the energy transition?
A: DTEK is the largest energy company in Ukraine, born in Donetsk. We have been under Russian occupation since 2014, but we have kept developing. Starting from coal and thermal power generation, we are now the country’s largest renewables company.

Twenty years ago, when we set up this company, we formulated a mission statement to bring light and warmth. But since then, especially after three years of full-scale invasion, our lives have changed and the mission is now that ‘energy powers life’.

Our company has been attacked more than 200 times since February 2022. In July 2024, about 90% of our generation capacity was damaged or destroyed. But daily attacks don’t stop us fighting. We call it an energy war.

However, fighting comes at a very big price. I get daily reports about destruction levels, attacks on our facilities, power lines, solar farms and power generation facilities. Just three days ago, there was another attack on our engineering crew which had just repaired one power line and we lost another colleague. The total comes to 336 technical employees killed during this time. But as I said, we bring life to our people and keep fighting.

Q: How fast are you able to recover power under these extreme conditions?
A: In restoring power lines or power stations, it may be hard to believe, but we have managed to recover from destruction in weeks or months, by bringing transformers from one power station to another. Since the lead time for transformers today is years, we have no choice but just to move equipment around. Today, we had temperatures of –10°C; none of our power stations have floors and walls, and this equipment shouldn’t operate under such extreme conditions. But yesterday, we had no power outages and we exported power out of Ukraine in some hours.

What we are proud of is not only the fact that we can recover everything that was destroyed. But it took only three months for us to restore construction of the largest wind farm in Ukraine [Tyligulska Phase I, 114 MW]. This year we started a new project, a new battery station of 200 MW capacity that costs €140mn [400 MWh, split across six sites, with technical provider Fluence]. We have a whole pipeline of investment projects in Ukraine for more than €10bn, and a quite significant part of this goes to the power distribution grid.

DTEK’s Tyligulska Phase I wind farm
Photo: DTEK

Q: Can you describe what reconstruction of the grid involves?
A: There was a famous story that on the day of full-scale invasion, the Ukrainian energy system disconnected from Russia, and we had to work for three weeks in an isolated regime, so that was our first test of resistance. We all worked together. Our colleagues demonstrated that we can be strong even in this isolated regime. But we were also very thankful to our partners, European countries, and after three weeks we connected the Ukrainian grid to the European grid.’

Q: This was a really big deal. Connecting to the European grid is like a five-year project. Could you expand on how that came together?
A: Nobody believed that it can be done in three weeks’ time. But as I said, I am very much grateful to our partners, because it was not only technical, it was to some extent a political decision to help Ukraine in this way. We have seen that our colleagues from the Baltic countries have done this recently. I think it was extremely important not only for Ukraine to survive during this difficult period, but also for Ukraine to become already physically part of European energy system and energy market.

I’ve always said that Ukraine should be seen not only as a problem or an obligation, but also as an asset for European partners. More renewable power, more clean power, could be coming from Ukraine; the only limiting factor is transmission lines.

Q: I remember that in 2021, when DTEK redid their strategy, they talked about renewables growth. What progress has been made?
A: DTEK, with other colleagues in Ukraine, have invested, since 2022, more than €1.2bn in the energy system. This demonstrates that Ukraine cannot just be seen as a big war zone by all risk maps. By our own example, we have demonstrated that it’s possible to build and invest now.

We are building a 386 MW wind farm in Ukraine [Tyligulska Phase II, due for completion in 2026]. The total cost of this project is €450mn, and we are doing it in partnership with the Danish government. One of the limiting factors for Ukraine now is access to capital market funding, including regular commercial finance, but we can work with supportive governments. In this particular case, it was support of the Danish government, which provided guarantees for €370mn for loans to supply these turbines [64 Vestas EnVentus V162-6.0 MW turbines].

Even now, foreign companies are not allowed to send their employees into Ukraine. So, we managed to do this project with our own Ukrainian employees, partly through remote management from the exporting countries, partly by creating our own way and developing skills to realise such a deployment. This will be the largest private investment in the energy industry of Ukraine, not just since the invasion, but since independence.

Q: How have you been developing the skills base of the workforce in Ukraine?
A: We are fighting for the future of our country. But being in such an extreme situation takes a lot of everything. It has also led to development of the skills of our people, because we have no choice but to learn fast to replace those contractors who are not coming to Ukraine.

Furthermore, we apply these skills for international projects. In fact, even during this time, we are investing in Romania, Poland, Italy, Croatia. For example, in Romania, we will have 300 MW of solar in wind farms [these include Glodeni I and II, Ruginoasa and a 126 MWp project in Văcărești that just began construction]. In Poland we will be the largest battery storage developer. And most of these projects are being realised by Ukraininan project managers, who share their knowledge and expertise. The only thing we cannot accept is the price [of war] we pay. Today, more than 5,000 DTEK employees are fighting in the Ukrainian army.

Q: Could you expand on earlier comments about the grid?
A: Ukraine has huge potential. Gigawatts of capacity can be built, taking into account our wind potential and our landscape. There is also a lot of commitment to deploy solar farms, but the limiting factor is the grid.

During the last year, we developed a new plan about how to bring this grid to European standards, with a €7.7bn fund. We know exactly what we need to do, and we are already realising pilot projects to show at small scale the grid of the future, starting from a digital model. With such a level of destruction, we have no choice but to rebuild new power with the latest functions.

The time will come when the Ukrainian energy system will be clean, consisting of nuclear and renewables, and will be one of the best energy power grids in Europe.

Q: You mentioned nuclear. Given the sensitivities now, what are your plans?
A: Coming back to energy security, what we learned is that decentralised power sources are very important. One ballistic missile can destroy a 300 MW power plant in one shot, but it is absolutely impossible to destroy with one or even 10 missiles a 300 MW solar farm or a wind farm. There is a big difference. That’s why we are waiting to adopt decentralised generation.

Of course, we still have a fleet of old generation facilities, so our first priority is power generation, and we are operating in a transition period.

We are also looking at the potential of small modular reactors.

But it won’t happen in just a couple of years. Today, we are in the in the development stage, building partnerships with neighbouring countries.

Maxim Timchenko (left) and Melissa Stark (right) at International Energy Week
Photo: Energy Institute/Oliver Dixon Photography
 

Q: How do you see DTEK in the next five years?
A: We see our future as a member of the European Union, as part of the European family. I think what’s next is to make Europe independent; independent in defence, independent in energy security, independent in many things. The world has changed so quickly. I think our role as one of the major energy companies in Ukraine is to build this energy independence of Europe.

We want to open the potential of Ukraine to investors. Not necessarily deploying hundreds of millions of capital but to see the opportunities. Trust me, in my experience it is much faster to build a wind park in Ukraine than in any other European country, and to export this clean power back to Europe.

Q: Can you tell us about gas operations in Ukraine?
A: We know that Ukraine has the largest gas storage facilities: 30bn m³. We were the first Ukrainian company to bring LNG from the United States, to the European continent only one month ago. [Through a trading subsidiary, DTEK bought the entire 0.1bn m³ payload of Gaslog Savannah, which docked at Greece’s Revithoussa LNG terminal to avoid wartime restrictions on LNG transits in the Black Sea. Instead, it used the regasification terminal together with cross-border pipelines such as the Vertical Corridor initiative, which transmits gas between Greece, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Slovakia, Moldova and Ukraine.]

I was pleased to hear from the President of the European Union yesterday that by 2027 our power markets will be fully integrated. With continued integration of gas, the investment protection system, the European grid, and the right regulatory investment environment, we anticipate that investment capital will start coming back to Ukraine.

Q: Have you a final message for our global audience at International Energy Week?
A: I think that despite all these dramatic times in Ukraine, and all this destruction and suffering, we should stay optimistic about the future. To survive in Ukraine, we have to think that the next day will be better, and never lose hope about our future. Please think about Ukraine as a country of opportunities, then we will help each other.

• Further reading: ‘Baltic states synchronise electricity grid with Europe’. The energy systems of the Baltic States disconnected from Russia’s energy system and joined the energy system of continental Europe in early February 2025, in what was the largest energy independence and regional security project in recent decades. 
• Find out how Europe’s energy landscape is shifting after the flow of some 14bn m³ of Russian gas through Ukraine’s pipelines halted on 1 January 2025, marking the end of a five-year transit agreement that had been a cornerstone of Europe’s energy supply.