Ukraine's Kyivstar to ramp up investments in energy resilience, CEO says

VEON

05/09/2024 15:41

By Gianluca Lo Nostro and Stephanie Hamel
       Sept 5 (Reuters) - Ukraine's leading mobile operator
Kyvistar will ramp up investments to improve its energy
resilience amid Russia's escalated assault on the country's
power grids, CEO Oleksandr Komarov told Reuters on Thursday.
    Ukraine has been grappling with a major energy deficit since
Moscow renewed its assault on power grids and transmission lines
last spring, causing daily blackouts of up to 12 hours in major
cities including the capital Kyiv.
    The country's telecoms regulator said in July that mobile
operators must be able to cover outages of up to 10 hours at
their stations from February, rather than the four required now.
    "We will invest billions of extra hryvnias into the energy
resilience," Komarov said.
    Kyivstar's parent company VEON  VON.AS  in June raised its
digital infrastructure investment target in Ukraine to $1
billion by 2027.
    Komarov said the work was in progress, but flagged large
operational obstacles such as battery availability, logistics,
and limited recharging power between blackouts.
    "We are moving towards ... six hours of backup across at
least all key sites and four hours for the whole network," he
said, adding that 60% of Kyivstar's network currently had a
four-hour backup, while 40% of it could last 2-4 hours.
    Asked about the freezing of Kyivstar's corporate rights by
Ukrainian authorities, the CEO said the appeal process was
underway, with the next court hearing expected on Sept. 13.
    "I'm confident that this issue will and should be resolved,"
Komarov said, adding the decision had not affected Kyivstar's
operations.
    Last October, a Kyiv court froze 47.85% of Kyivstar's
corporate rights due to the previous involvement of sanctioned
Russian individuals in VEON.
    Russian billionaire Mikhail Fridman, who has been under EU
sanctions since 2022 despite being recently cleared by the
bloc's top court, quit VEON board two years ago as the EU moved
to sanction him.
    "There is no grounds for nationalisation (of Kyivstar), as
VEON is not under any sanctions. I do understand there are some
concerns addressed to personalities, but it should be resolved
on this level," Komarov said.

 (Reporting by Gianluca Lo Nostro and Stéphanie Hamel in Gdansk;
editing by Milla Nissi)
 ((Gianluca.lonostro@thomsonreuters;
stephanie.hamel@thomsonreuters.com))