The Verkhovna Rada launches the procedure for dismissing Energy Minister Herman Halushchenko. MPs register the relevant resolution.
This was reported by MP Yaroslav Zheleznyak and MP-member of the Energy Committee Inna Sovsun.
The reasons are cited as corruption in the energy sector, ignoring calls to meetings of parliament, committees, and the temporary investigative commission, loss of reputation among partners, "failed" work on infrastructure protection, manipulation, and unacceptable behavior during the governmentʼs question hour on January 10.
According to Sovsun, Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said that the completion of the Khmelnytskyi NPP was agreed upon with the Americans. The MP responded that members of the Energy Committee received a message from the European Commission delegation and the US Embassy in Ukraine, in which they expressed concern that information was emerging about alleged support for the completion of the Khmelnytskyi NPP, although there is no such support.
Then, as Sovsun writes, Herman Halushchenko called the representatives of the European Commission "middle-level clerks" and stated: "Inna, I am very sorry that you are running around embassies and pouring mud on our energy sector and our state."
"I reminded him that a few months ago the Verkhovna Rada, including the ʼServants of the Peopleʼ, summoned Halushchenko to report on corruption in the Ministry of Energy. He still hasnʼt appeared," the MP wrote.
Soon, the Ministry of Energy wrote in its statement that the transcript of the Verkhovna Rada meeting recorded that the ministerʼs statement did not refer to the words of the EU Ambassador to Ukraine.
"Unfortunately, the issue of the construction of power units of the Khmelnytskyi NPP has become a subject of manipulation, including by individual opposition deputies of the Verkhovna Rada and experts. In particular, within the framework of relevant public discussions, private correspondence of mid-level diplomats who are not authorized to express the official position of the EU or member states was used. It was this correspondence that the minister spoke about in his report," the statement noted.
- In July, information spread that three current transformers had burned out at the South Ukrainian NPP in three days, which led to the disconnection from the network of one of the nuclear reactors and two or three lines in the “Ukrenergo” network. Herman Halushchenko stated at a meeting of the Verkhovna Rada that information about the accident at the Pivdenna NPP was a fake spread by the Russians. In response to a parliamentary inquiry by Yaroslav Zheleznyak, “Ukrenergo” confirmed the “extraordinary situation”.
- In April 2024, the State Enterprise “Energoatom” wrote that construction of power units No. 5 and No. 6 at the Khmelnytskyi NPP had begun using American AP1000 Westinghouse technology. Ukraine planned to begin construction of four new nuclear reactors at the Khmelnytskyi NPP.
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