Ukraine Plans 1.5 GW of New Gas-Fired Capacity to Replace Destroyed Plants
Kyiv's rebuilding push sets up a direct competition for available gas molecules as winter storage targets loom.
Ukraine's deputy energy minister Valentyna Moskalenko said on Thursday (2026-06-25) the country would commission 1.5 gigawatts of small gas-fired power plants before the end of the year, with further capacity additions planned through 2027, as Kyiv races to replace generation destroyed by Russian strikes.6
The announcement comes as Ukraine's power system operates under sustained attack. Russia launched a major drone and missile strike on gas production facilities in the Poltava and Kharkiv regions on Tuesday (2026-05-19), with state-owned Naftogaz telling Montel the damage was "significant."2 Each gigawatt of lost thermal capacity has to be replaced by something, and with import connections under pressure, the answer is domestic gas-fired generation.
The gas to fuel that capacity is the complication. Ukraine's energy ministry set a winter storage target of 14.6bcm — about 34% of storage capacity — by the start of the heating season, with a minimum threshold of 13.2bcm, equivalent to 30% of capacity.1 Those targets were established in May as a floor to ensure stable supply through winter. Building 1.5 GW of new gas-fired plant while simultaneously filling storage to mandated levels sets up a direct competition for available gas molecules.
Domestic supply is shrinking at the same time. Ukraine's gas imports collapsed from 24mcm on Tuesday (2026-03-31) to just 0.8mcm, the lowest in more than a year, according to data from Kyiv-based consultancy ExPro. High European gas prices priced the country out of the spot market.5 ICE Endex TTF front-month settled at €41.08 as of Friday's close (2026-06-27), down 1.78% on the day but still at levels that make Ukrainian spot purchases commercially prohibitive.
Ukraine compounded its gas balance challenge when it halted Russian gas transit to European customers after a pre-war transit agreement expired. The deal's lapse severed what had been, before Russia's invasion, a major supply artery for central European buyers. Russia supplied nearly 40% of the European Union's pipeline gas before the war; that share fell to roughly 8% by 2023, according to EU Commission data.3 The transit route that once funded Kyiv's own gas system now sits idle.
The EU has since explored routing Azerbaijani gas through the same pipeline infrastructure crossing Ukrainian territory, with Bloomberg reporting that Brussels was in discussions about using Russian transit corridors for Azerbaijani supply.4 Whether that materialises matters for Ukraine's gas balance as well as European supply diversity — transit fees from even modest flows would provide revenue Kyiv could use to offset energy import costs.
The 1.5 GW capacity addition is designed to be modular and geographically dispersed, reducing the concentration of assets that has made Ukraine's centralised generation vulnerable to precision strikes. Small gas-fired plants can be distributed across the grid, which is the operational rationale. The economic one is that replacement capacity has to be in place before the next winter load peak, regardless of fuel costs.
The harder constraint is the fuel arithmetic. Ukraine needs to rebuild power capacity and simultaneously fill storage to at least 13.2bcm — both goals are gas-intensive, and they compete for the same molecules. With imports near zero due to price levels and domestic production under pressure from the same attacks that damaged the Kharkiv facilities, the balance depends on either a meaningful drop in European gas prices or a resumption of import flows that currently make no commercial sense. TTF at €41 per megawatt-hour leaves Ukrainian utilities priced out. The rebuilt plants risk being installed capacity that cannot afford to run when it is most needed.6,1,5