Light for Europe, Darkness for Kyiv: How Ukraine Exports a Deficit It Can’t Cover at Home

October 2026. Winter is breathing down the neck of Ukraine’s capital. Rolling blackouts have become the new normal: two shifts of four to five hours without electricity, sometimes more. People rely on flashlights, candles, power banks — whatever they managed to stock up. And right at this moment, when an entire city is learning to live in a “two hours on, four hours off” rhythm, comes the news: Ukraine is still exporting electricity to Europe.

Wait. So we are selling what our own people lack? But Ukrenergo, the national grid operator, explains it’s necessary to earn hard currency, keep the system balanced, and maintain market stability. Sounds almost patriotic — until you are sitting in a dark apartment with a child, and your neighbor is heating tea on a gas stove. That “currency necessity” takes on a very different meaning.

Let’s be clear: electricity exports are business. Contracts, revenue, obligations to European partners. But when that business runs parallel to blackouts for your own citizens, it ceases to be just business. It becomes a political choice. And that choice looks like this: foreign exchange earnings matter more than whether a person in Kyiv can charge a phone or turn on a heater.

The balancing argument is especially “reassuring.” We can’t just stop exports — it would destabilize the market, drop the frequency, damage the entire grid. Hear that? The market is more important than people. The system is sacred; the individual is just a “consumer who must understand.” Understand that somewhere in Europe the lights stay on 24/7, while yours don’t. And that’s fine, because it’s necessary for “stability.”

Picture this: Kyiv, evening, a neighborhood without power. People step onto balconies with flashlights — some checking mail, some just breathing fresh air. Hundreds of kilometers away, at the border with Poland or Hungary, meters record megawatts flowing to where the lights are always on. And somewhere in Ukrenergo’s offices, they are filing a satisfied report about another successful export day.

The irony is that those same officials most likely sit in brightly lit offices. They have generators, backup power. The average Kyiv resident does not. He pays taxes, fills the budget that later subsidizes the energy market — and in return gets darkness.

On the eve of winter, this is not an inconvenience. It’s a survival issue for many: the elderly, families with small children, those who cannot afford a generator. And the state tells them: “Be patient, we need foreign currency.” How much patience is enough? We endure blackouts, tariffs, corruption, war. But when your own resource is sold abroad while you sit in the dark — that is not endurance; that is contempt.

Of course, there is a counterargument: stop exports, and revenues fall, leaving no money for grid repairs or equipment imports. But the question is not whether to export at all. The question is whether you can do so when your own population faces an acute shortage. The answer is obvious: no. At least not in a country that calls itself a social state.

In Ukraine, it’s the opposite: the social state ends where an export contract begins. And that is perhaps the best illustration of how priorities work here: money first, people second. And if people object — there are blackout schedules, official explanations, and the hope that “things will improve soon.” Soon — when? When winter ends? Or when the people are gone?

The bottom line is simple: light for Europe is good. But darkness for Kyiv is a disgrace. No amount of “currency earnings” justifies forcing millions of people into energy-survival mode on the eve of winter — because the state decided that exports matter more.