Olena Zelenska told how the couple counteracts blackouts: «They bought a generator, it's loud, but it saves»

First Lady Olena Zelenska/ Photo: Office of the President

The First Lady of Ukraine Olena Zelenska talked about how her family copes with power outages. According to her, this year the situation has improved a little thanks to the new generator.

She told about this in an interview with TSN.

«This year, it is a little easier for me, because the generator is working, its operation has been adjusted. Loud, but it saves,» said Olena Zelenska.

She recalled the first power outages and shared memories of how the Zelenskyys' lived «by candlelight.»

«We all remembered what life is like by candlelight, we had romantic evenings with our children, we even liked it sometimes, we had dinner by candlelight, read books, played board games, went to bed earlier. Therefore, yes, we all live in the same realities, we all really want everything to change back to normal life,» said the first lady.

Power outage in Mykolayiv Oblast

As you know, power outages across Ukraine have returned since mid-May 2024. The main reason for this is the resumption of large-scale shelling of the energy sector by the Russians, which destroyed 9.2 GW of Ukrainian generation over the past three months.

The government explained that the outages will last until August-September. And in winter, a deficit in the energy system is predicted even at high temperatures.

Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said that the Ministry of Energy and Ukrenergo should develop a resolution that would regulate «fair schedules of turning off the lights for consumers.»

In Mykolaiv and the region, outages occur according to the queues to which the region is divided according to the Mykolaivoblenergo schedule — there are 6 of them in total. The list of addresses by queues can be viewed at the link.

Also, Mykolaivoblenergo presented a search system that should help consumers more easily navigate schedules and power outages.

It is also worth noting that almost all this time the lights were turned off according to hourly schedules for 2 hours in a row, however, on June 4, special emergency shutdown schedules were introduced in Mykolaiv and the region. Consumers were without light for 5-6 hours.

Trams and trolleybuses may not work for hours in Mykolaiv due to the lack of electricity supply.

On July 15, a petition about the unfair distribution of electricity between the regions of Ukraine appeared on the website of the Cabinet of Ministers. So far, it has more than 4,000 signatures.

The fact of failure at the Southern Ukraine nuclear power plant also affected the long blackouts in the Mykolaiv region, which reached 16-18 hours.