Ukrainian citizens can’t rely on the government in Kiev for energy and should take matters into their own hands by collecting manure and drying it out before the bitterly cold winter comes, a long-serving opposition MP has warned.
The bizarre suggestion comes as the Ukrainian authorities struggle to deal with both gas and coal shortages.
Speaking to the Nash TV channel on Tuesday, Mikhail Volynets suggested the country’s shortage of energy resources could leave citizens fighting for themselves.
Volynets is a veteran MP, having served in four convocations of the country’s parliament since 2002. He is currently a member of the Fatherland party, a conservative pro-European faction headed by Yulia Tymoshenko.
“It’s necessary to warn people in rural areas to collect dung and dry it,” Volynets said. We have to rely only on ourselves and not on the government.’
Also on rt.com Despite Kiev’s worsening energy crisis, Ukrainian MP says that gas deal with Russia would put country ‘on its knees’ before MoscowThe MP expressly referred to ‘kiziaks,’ the dried animal-feces discs used by Kazakhs on the steppe. The dung is cut into small squares, then left in the sun for several weeks or months. Once dried out, it acts in a similar way to coal and is, therefore, a way to warm the home.
On Sunday, it was revealed that a lack of coal supplies had caused the shutdown of the Slavyansk thermal power plant, in the country’s Donetsk region. At the same time, several other plants reported that they had less than 10 days of supply left. This announcement came just four days after the Federation of Employers of Ukraine dubbed the current situation as “disastrous,” noting issues with both coal and gas supply.
Last week, Tymoshenko described the energy crisis as the result of “corruption” and the authorities’ incompetence, and demanded that a national state of emergency be called.
However, despite the growing crisis, many parliamentarians remain steadfast in refusing to cooperate with Gazprom, despite the country’s reliance on the Russian energy giant for gas supplies. Last week, independent MP Lyudmila Buymister claimed any agreement would cause Kiev to be “brought to its knees” before Moscow.
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