Cleaning Up: Leadership in an Age of Climate ChangeMichael Liebreich, Bryony WorthingtonAll episodes
How To Run An Electricity Grid In A State Of War | Deep Dive Ukraine 04: Vitalii Zaichenko & Volodymyr Kudrytskyi
The grid is one of the most important assets in any functioning energy system, transmitting electricity from where it's generated to where it's needed. In Ukraine, that challenge is enormous.
The country is very big, 1,300 kilometers from east to west, almost the distance from London to Rome. And the system is under constant attack from Russia, which targets the grid with everything from tiny drones to ballistic missiles.
In this fourth episode of our Ukraine Deep Dive, we're featuring two separate conversations with guests intimately familiar with the operations of that grid: Vitalii Zaichenko, the current chair and CEO of Ukrenergo, Ukraine's national grid operator, and Volodymyr Kudrytskyi, the former CEO of Ukrenergo from 2020 to 2024, and now co-founder of Negen.
Michael asks each of them how you protect a grid under constant attack. They also talk about the remarkable story of how Ukraine disconnected itself from the Russian grid and connected itself to the European grid in just three weeks at the beginning of the full-scale invasion, how to build more resilient energy systems, and why there's so much political scandal around the management of Ukrenergo and whether Ukraine could be better prepared for winter.
Topics covered in this episode:
- Russia’s attacks on Ukraine’s electricity grid
- Protecting substations from missiles and drones
- Ukraine’s rapid synchronisation with Europe
- The shift towards decentralised power generation
- Batteries balancing nuclear, solar and wind
- Financing and insuring energy projects in Ukraine
- The political controversy surrounding Ukrenergo’s leadership
- Lessons for global energy system resilience
Leadership Circle:
Cleaning Up is proud to be supported by its Leadership Circle. The members are Actis, Alcazar Energy, Arup, Climate Imperative Foundation, Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners, Cygnum Capital, Davidson Kempner, EcoPragma Capital, EDP, Eurelectric, KKR, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, National Grid, Octopus Energy, Quadrature Climate Foundation, Schneider Electric, SDCL and Wärtsilä.
Links:
- Vitalii Zaichenko’s bio: https://ua.energy/about_us/the-management/chairman-of-the-management-board/
- Volodymyr Kudrytskyi’s bio: https://www.linkedin.com/in/volodymyr-kudrytskyi-45233161/
- Ukrenergo: https://ua.energy/en/
- Negen: https://www.negen.energy/en
- News articles covering Volodymyr’s arrest and bail: • https://kyivindependent.com/ukraine-ex-grid-operator-chief-detained-over-suspected-embezzlement-of-state-company-funds/
- https://www.osw.waw.pl/en/publikacje/analyses/2025-11-03/kudrytskyis-arrest-attempt-to-intimidate-representatives-state
- https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4g5380xwqjo
- Wärtsilä’s Håkan Agnevall on Cleaning Up: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dUYjGT55g5A&t=2s
- Subscribe to the Cleaning Up Newsletter: https://cleaninguppod.substack.com/
Acronyms:
- TSO: Transmission System Operator
- ENTSO-E: European Network of Transmission System Operators for Electricity
- DFI: Development Finance Institution
- IFI: International Financial Institution
- EBRD: European Bank for Reconstruction and Development
Chapters:
- 00:00 Intro
- 02:34 Ukraine’s Grid
- 08:56 The Need for Flexibility
- 11:18 Protecting the Grid
- 14:10 Repairing the Damage
- 19:58 Connecting to Europe
- 29:04 Ukrenergo Leadership Controversy
- 31:11 Decentralised Power
- 41:20 Kudrytskyi’s Dismissal
- 45:35 Preparing for Winter
- 47:03 Attracting Investment
- 50:54 The Role of Gas
- 53:34 Lessons for the World
- 56:05 Outro
