Heating season kicks off across Ukraine – Naftogaz
Source: Oleksiy Chernyshov/Facebook
Ukraine’s heating season is officially underway, reports Naftogaz. According to Naftogaz Group CEO Oleksiy Chernyshov, energy sector teams across the country have begun supplying heat to Ukrainian homes.
Despite attacks on gas production sites and underground storage facilities from April to August, Ukraine has stored enough resources to ensure a stable autumn-winter season in 2024/2025. This year, state energy companies Ukrgazvydobuvannya and Ukrnafta increased gas production by more than 7% compared to last year, and operations at the Sakhalinske field have resumed. Meanwhile, Naftogaz continues to purchase gas on the domestic market through the Ukrainian Energy Exchange.
Last winter, Ukraine used 6.7 billion cubic meters of gas that came from its underground storage sites. Naftogaz predicts similar consumption levels for the 2024/2025 season.
Naftogaz Trading has also secured gas supply contracts with all district heating companies that submitted requests, under Public Service Obligation (PSO) terms. The agreement will keep gas prices stable for heating providers, power producers, and households through April 2025.
To ensure safe and uninterrupted gas distribution, Hazmerezhi teams are now performing routine maintenance on systems in apartnment buildings.
In Ukraine, the heating season traditionally begins on October 15.
In 2025, the deadliest year yet for civilians, Ukraine’s three largest charitable foundations raised a record 105.9 billion hryvnias. It is more than the years 2022–2024 combined. According to the UN, humanitarian aid in Ukraine was delivered by more than 450 organisations, reaching five million people over the course of the year. Civic foundations hold licences to purchase lethal weapons, which is a function states have monopolised for centuries. These record sums were underwritten by international government grants, which means foreign states now channel billions directly through Ukrainian civic funds, bypassing inter-state channels. It is hard to imagine a stronger institutional trust in civil society.
During the GLOBSEC Defence Forum 2026 in Prague, representatives of “Steel Front”, an initiative by Rinat Akhmetov, discussed with NATO delegations, military officials, and representatives of the European defense industry the lessons learned from Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine.
After the start of the full-scale invasion in February 2022, Ukraine witnessed an unprecedented wave of private support for the army. Citizens, big businesses, charitable foundations, and international philanthropists began financing the country’s defense alongside state assistance provided by international partners. Estimates of total private contributions range from tens to hundreds of billions of hryvnias. However, determining the exact amount remains difficult. In many cases, companies combine military aid, humanitarian programs, tax payments, social spending, and employee support in their reporting.
Rinat Akhmetov’s military initiative, “Steel Front”, has delivered a batch of drones worth UAH 214 million to the 1st “Azov” Corps of the National Guard of Ukraine. This shipment is part of the Metinvest Group’s ongoing support for the unit in 2025.
On October 6, the Administrative Cassation Court within the Supreme Court of Ukraine continued hearing case No. 990/80/25, in which the fifth President and leader of the party “European Solidarity”, Petro Poroshenko, seeks to have Presidential Decree No. 81/2025 from February 12, 2025 — enacting sanctions by the decision of the National Security and Defense Council (NSDC) — declared illegal and annulled. The plaintiff claims the document was falsified and that the sanctions are a tool of political persecution of the opposition, contrary to international norms. Government representatives deny the allegations and insist their actions were lawful. Journalists of Bukvy were present at the hearing.