DiXi Group experts discussed the danger of energy dependence on Russia with journalists from African countries

Vice President Anton Antonenko and project expert Olena Lapenko met with representatives of the Ukrainian civil sector along with journalists from African countries. The visit was organized by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine in the context of implementing the assignment of President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy to intensify Ukraine’s communication with African countries.

The experts emphasized the danger of energy dependence on Russia, the importance of strengthening energy sanctions against Russia and the necessity of support from African countries during the meeting with journalists from African countries.

The DiXi Group Vice President noted that during a full-scale war, Russia essentially deprives Ukrainians of access to energy resources — stripping away their right to use energy, municipal services, and everything that is part of normal life.

«I am sure you all saw how fast Ukrainians rebuild, and especially in energy. When we have blackouts, we try to rebuild the thermal generation, all other types of generation we have at hand. How crucial dependency in the energy sector can be, considering we use energy every day? Dependency leads to utilizing a resource like energy as a weapon», he emphasized.

According to the expert, Russia resorts to tools such as occupation, blackmail, economic and political pressure, corrupt schemes, purchasing assets to take them out of operation, and physical destruction in the energy dimension of this war. Specifically, Russians have used «a lot of tools to destroy a big part of Ukraine’s renewable installations».

On her part, Olena Lapenko emphasized that Africa has become a new field for Russian energy expansion. She recalled that even at the end of July, the second Russia–Africa Economic and Humanitarian Forum took place.

«Russia clearly demonstrates ambitions on the African continent. Since 2023, Russian Rosatom signed a lot of memorandums and agreements with African countries, like Mali, Algeria, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Morocco, Republic of Burundi. All these memorandums and agreements in long term will be new nuclear projects. Such cooperation with Moscow, although beneficial for African countries at first glance, can have fatal consequences and is the first step towards political dependence on Russia. The Russians use not only gas, coal, and oil products to blackmail the different countries, but also nuclear facilities», Olena Lapenko said during the meeting with journalists.

According to her, sanctions should be imposed on all companies in the Rosatom structure, which are not directly involved in the maintenance of operating nuclear power plants, supply of fuel and raw materials.

We would like to remind you that on December 12, DiXi Group will hold the third Ukrainian Energy Security Dialogue, the topic of which this year will be the Resilience and Recovery of the energy sector of Ukraine. For more details, please follow the link.

We thank the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine for organizing and inviting us to participate in the meeting.