Ukraine’s energy system “will be more prepared” for the upcoming cold season after Russian strikes plunged thousands into cold and darkness last winter, the head of Ukraine’s biggest private energy provider told AFP on Friday.

Near-daily barrages of Russian drones and missiles targeted Ukrainian energy sites, forcing rolling power outages amid the harshest winter since Moscow started its invasion in 2022.

“We will be more prepared, we learn our lessons from last winter,” Maxim Timchenko, the CEO of DTEK, Ukraine’s largest private energy company, told AFP at a conference on Ukrainian reconstruction in Poland.

“That’s our absolute priority and this is (the) mission of DTEK and other energy companies not to repeat last winter,” Timchenko said, adding he was looking with “optimism” towards the heating season.

Tens of thousands have been killed since Russia launched its offensive, with millions forced to flee their homes and much of east and southern Ukraine destroyed.

Last winter, Ukraine saw temperatures plummet to as low as -20C as Russia battered its energy sites with strikes that Kyiv said were a deliberate attempt to terrorise its civilians.

The threat was also pushing Ukraine to speed up its transition to renewable energy sources, Timchenko told AFP.

“We need to build (a) new energy system in Ukraine, new generation that is much more resilient. A priority is in renewables, wind, solar, battery storage,” he said.

Russia has launched at least 6,194 attacks on Ukrainian energy facilities since it invaded in February 2022, the country’s energy ministry told AFP.

Ukraine aims to have 27 percent of all electricity production from renewables by 2030 — up from 11 percent at the moment — according to a plan adopted in 2024.