More than four years after Russian troops invaded Ukraine, like many of her compatriots Svitlana Romanko may have lost faith in the multilateral system.
“ There is no hope in multilateralism, unfortunately, left in the country where I live because as been we’ve been witnessing so far over three and a half years, the international order has been quite outdated and it needs complete renewal,” she told a conference in Rome I attended last October.
Targeted Russian attacks on civilian energy infrastructure, an unambiguous war crime, have been more prominent as they ramped up in an attempt to freeze Ukraine into submission through a bitter winter. More prominent again as experts warn that Europeans need to urgently prepare for Russian hybrid warfare against energy infrastructure across the continent - as a former CIA analyst told Semafor’s Kyiv-based Tim McDonnell:
In late December, a wave of Russian cyberattacks hit energy facilities across Poland, a sign that Moscow may be willing to expand its energy campaign beyond Ukraine as a means of testing NATO cohesion, Chelsea Cederbaum, now a senior threat intelligence analyst at the cybersecurity firm Recorded Future, said. And as Russian President Vladimir Putin grows frustrated by slow progress in Ukraine and anticipates a post-midterms political landscape in the US that may be less inclined to favorable dealings with Moscow, “there’s a high risk of escalation by Russia over the next two years.”
But as Romanko recounted to me in our conversation, the four-year conflict has taken an incredible toll on Ukraine’s ability to keep providing energy to its people:
“In 2021, Ukraine had 54 gigawatts of energy with different types of energy production. And next year we just only have left nine gigawatts. Because everything else was significantly damaged or destroyed by Russian attacks, which were quite hard.
So for households, that meant that we had, uh, power supply, just, it could be two hours per 24 hours.”
She’s clear-eyed about what has kept Vladimir Putin’s war going - something related to the inability of the multilateral international system to stop it: dependence on fossil fuels. As she told me in an interview, the “ global fossil fuel addictions that feeds Purin War machine, but also other war vehicles around the world” are central to the problem.
Another type of faith has kept her going. When Russian troops surged across the border in February 2022, Kyiv-based Romanko was managing the Zero Fossil Fuels Campaign for the Laudato Sì Movement - a global, faith-based coalition founded in 2015 to mobilise Catholics and people of goodwill to tackle the climate emergency and ecological crisis, prompted by the publication of the “Laudato Si: Care for our Common Home” encyclical published by the late Pope Francis that year.
I met Romanko after seeing her speak at their conference in October at the papal summer residence Castel Gandolfo south of Rome marking the 10th anniversary of Laudato Sì. She shared a panel discussion with Tuvalu climate minister Dr. Maina Talia. He also spoke with us:
A professor of climate and environmental law who had already developed deep expertise in the financial flows created by fossil fuels and having worked for several NGOs including 350.org, Romanko was better prepared than most to understand how the war was being funded.
She founded Razom We Stand, a Ukrainian-led climate campaign that aims to pressure the fossil fuel industry to cut ties with Russia, but also calls for accelerated transition to renewables across Europe to lessen the demand for and dependence on Russian fossil fuels.
“ We need to expand on renewables because this is the energy of peace,” she told me. “This is the energies that can’t be targeted by military attacks because it’s very much distributed, it’s owned by many, and it’s very affordable.”
As AFP reported this week from Ukraine, ordinary people in the conflict zone - like people in Pakistan or West Africa - are outpacing policymakers in putting solar and battery to use in adapting to their circumstances. In Ukraine’s case the enemy’s deliberate targeting of the grid. People who might otherwise have to flee their tower block and their city have found ways to keep things going using cheap solar and battery:
The back-up supply in Biletsky’s block meant the lift -- unlike in many buildings -- was still shuttling up and down, and electric pumps were able to send water to the top floors.
Without it, there would be none above the ninth floor, said Biletsky.
“After the inverter was installed, we have constant heating, hot and cold water,” said Tetyana Taran, who lives on the 20th floor.
The inverter is the device that automatically draws supplies from the battery when the mains switch off.
“The fact that I also get to use the lift is great,” the 47-year-old added.
Razom We Stand this week pointed to research suggesting that Europe has, since the February 2022 invasion, spent roughly as much each year on Russian energy as the equivalent of everything Ukraine spends annually on defence (about $44bn). And that, with the replacement of a pipeline that crossed Ukraine with another pipeline via Turkey and into Bulgaria, certain European countries have scaled up Russian energy imports:
Trump administration efforts to force the Europe to replace Russian gas with American LNG are another trap.
“ There is no good gas and bad gas,” she said. “All gas is bad. All fossil gas is bad.”
Romanko sees it as just another aspect that “populist” political movements, whether in the US, Europe, or Nigel Farage’s Reform party in the UK are acting to try and reverse the move away from fossil fuels. As Desmog revealed in 2024, Reform has been highly dependent on funding from fossil fuel and climate-denial sources.
She is confident, though, that right-wing “populist” successes in preserving the status quo on behalf of fossil fuel allies will be temporary.
“I believe governments will follow because — the populist populism era that we are unfortunately entering in every country where we can see the rise of far rise, it’s very temporary.
They have nothing to offer. They have nothing to really offer to decrease the cost of energy, of electricity to support people.”
By tomorrow morning the voters of Gorton and Denton here in the UK will either make that point and clear - or we’ll have to wait a bit longer.
Repairer of the Breach
For the past year, and longer, I’ve spend time re-engaging with the faith tradition I grew up in. I’m writing about that experience and process and how it’s affected how I view climate action at climatepilgrim.com. But I couldn’t help sharing a quote some people may have heard in the past week:
If you lavish your food on the hungry and satisfy the afflicted; Then your light shall rise in the darkness, and your gloom shall become like midday;
Then the Lord will guide you always and satisfy your thirst in parched places, will give strength to your bones and you shall be like a watered garden, like a flowing spring whose waters never fail.g
Your people shall rebuild the ancient ruins; the foundations from ages past you shall raise up; “Repairer of the breach,” they shall call you, “Restorer of ruined dwellings.”h
Here’s hoping, for Svitlana and for Ukraine.
Back soon.
