The Ministry of Energy and Environment Protection expects that the operator of the electricity transmission system Ukrenergo in the near future will submit an updated forecast balance of the unified energy system of Ukraine, which, among other things, will contain minimized volumes of electricity imports from the Russian Federation and Belarus, Energy Minister Oleksiy Orzhel has said.

"The ministry's position on this issue [electricity imports from Russia and Belarus] is known. There is a letter asking you to block import of electricity. There is a clear position on this issue. A new balance is being prepared. A meeting was held in late January. The system operator Ukrenergo in the near future should file a balance in which it will minimize – only in the framework of operational security – the possibility of importing electricity from Russia and Belarus. We are maximally loading our own production facilities," he said during a joint visit with President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky to Mezhyrichanska mine (Chervonohrad, Lviv region).

As reported, the Ministry of Energy in the forecast balance for 2020 approved at the beginning of November last year foresaw the growth of electricity imports by 2.8 times, to 4.14 billion kWh compared to the expected at that time 1.488 billion kWh of imports in 2019.

According to Ukrenergo, the actual energy imports figures for the six months, since the launch of the new energy market model in July, amounted to 2.699 billion kWh of electricity. Some 851.297 million kWh (31.5% of the total imports) were imported from Belarus, while 286.264 million kWh (10.6%) from Russia.