Ms Olga Rudenko:

I thank the Chairman. I have been listening to the conversation. I thank the committee and Mr. Merezhko for organising the meeting. Mr. Merezhko has been giving detailed and extensive answers. I will add some points to what he has said. In recent days, I have been studying information about our electricity and heating station facilities. There has been heat about the figures. In the eastern parts of Ukraine, most of the facilities, such as water supplies and electricity, have been destroyed completely. That is where the battlefield was most extensive. With the recent attacks that started on 10 October, rockets and missiles have been hitting electricity stations and other facilities and infrastructure.

Mostly central and northern parts of Ukraine have been hit. In some parts about 30% or 40% has been hit. In the Kyiv region today about 50% of some areas have been destroyed. Our people are busy all the time reconstructing and fixing this. However, some places have been hit by missiles several times already. Some were hit three times. Now they say that in the Kyiv region in two weeks they can fix most of it. Energy is now reduced by about 80% but in two weeks we will have fewer electricity cuts. We still expect missiles to hit again, however, so nobody can guarantee how long it will last. Up to 50% of central and northern parts have been hit. In western parts it is better at about 20% or 30%. The whole of Ukraine has been affected. We have energy cuts in all of Ukraine.

The evacuation was in the news. I refer to the evacuation of Kyiv, for example. At this time about 50% of the people who went abroad to save their lives from war have returned to Ukraine. They plan to stay here even with the electricity cuts and shortage of water. They are ready to stay. If there is a complete blackout and a complete shortage of water and electricity, they will have no heat. Then they will have to save their children. They are prepared to go to EU countries such as Poland to save their families. They are reluctant to do that now. They are ready to stay and live in this situation where there is no electricity for half of the day. They do not want to go. They are ready to stay and suffer this.

Questions were asked about India. I was part of the Inter-Parliamentary Union, IPU, delegation to Rwanda a few weeks ago. An emergency resolution with regard to Ukraine was proposed by the Chilean delegation. It condemned Russia's accession of territories and Russian aggression. We had a vote. There were two emergency items at one point, one from Pakistan and one from Chile about Ukraine. Interestingly, India supported both of them. It supported the Ukrainian one as well as the Pakistani one. We have to work in this direction and develop our relations with India. There is space to work on this. That is what I wanted to say.