KYIV

Ukraine has extended a ban on electricity imports from Russia and Belarus until November 1, citing the fact that neither country was a member of the Energy Community of South-East Europe.

The decision was taken by the country’s National Energy and Utilities Regulation Commission (NEURC), which said that it did not receive any appeals regarding the need to resume electricity imports from countries that were not members of the Energy Community.

The initial decision to suspend electricity imports applied from May to October 1 due to the entry into force of a new law amending legislation on certification of transmission system operators.

The new law entitled the NEURC to limit the available bandwidth allocated for daily and monthly auctions in 2021, as regards interstate crossings between Ukraine and countries that are not parties to the Energy Community.

The regulator has also cancelled the results of annual auctions on allocating imported electricity to local companies for further distribution.

Ukraine has been connected to the energy systems of neighbouring states since Soviet times. The country imported energy from Russia and Belarus due to a lack of domestic power generation at the beginning of this year.

Relations between Ukraine and Russia collapsed after Moscow seized and annexed the Ukrainian region of Crimea and Russian-backed separatists took control of territories in eastern Ukraine in 2014.

Kyiv’s relations with Minsk soured after Ukraine joined the European Union in not recognising the result of a presidential election that handed Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko a sixth term in office. Ukraine has also banned flights to and from Belarus, following the forced landing of the flight from Greece to Lithuania and the arrest of a dissident Belarusian journalist on board in May this year.

Belarus in response has introduced trade barriers against a range of goods from Ukraine. Six-month licences are now required for the import of Ukrainian goods, including confectionery, beer, chipboard, wallpaper, toilet paper, packaging, bricks, ceramic tiles, agricultural machinery, washing machines and furniture.