The paper aims to test the hypothesis whether high tariffs lead to a high efficiency of electricity suppliers. The authors test this hypothesis on a case of 29 Ukrainian electricity distribution companies. Using the data envelopment analysis and correlation coefficients, grouping the super-efficiency scores, the authors found that in most regions of Ukraine the increase in tariffs no longer leads to increased efficiency. This indicates a weakness of tariff policy in most of the electricity distribution companies. The case showed that rising tariffs can cause a decline in revenue, net income and an increase in accounts payable. This does not allow the electricity distribution companies to provide high efficiency.

Apart from this, despite improving the financial performance of most companies, the electricity distribution industry in Ukraine as a whole remains unprofitable. However, the high percentage of foreign investors in this industry indicates a significant potential for increasing the efficiency of Ukrainian energy companies. The government control of the electricity distribution companies more often provides medium efficiency, while the management by foreign investors often provides a high efficiency. The absence of the major owner and the presence of blocking stakes in any investor (government, domestic or foreign investors) has a negative impact on the efficiency of energy companies.

Although the case is limited to one country and 29 companies, this study can serve as a model for wider testing of the research hypothesis in other markets and countries.

In the contemporary world, natural gas is one of the focuses of hybrid wars and is used as a tool of international economic and political pressure to gain appropriate benefits. The long-term pressure of Russia on Ukraine using a combination of military, political, economic, information and energy tools is one of the most striking cases of applying natural gas as a weapon in a hybrid war. Exploring the case of Ukraine, the authors confirmed the hypothesis about the change in the impact of the prices of natural gas on the performance of its industrial consumers during a hybrid war. The study covered three industrial sectors that are major consumers of natural gas – the metallurgy, chemical and pharmaceutical industries. The data of nine key companies of these industries for the period 2006–2019 were analyzed; this period was divided into two parts – before the hybrid war (2006–2013) and during it (2014–2019). The authors identified the heterogeneity of the influence of natural gas prices on the performance of different industrial enterprises. However, since the onset of the hybrid war, all of them have shown a reducing correlation of natural gas prices with all the analyzed performance indicators – operating profitability, material-output ratio, and labor productivity. The study managed to build reliable regression models that allow defining the prices of natural gas for the chemical industry and metallurgy, above which these industries in Ukraine become unprofitable. The defined critical levels have a practical implication since they can be tools for regulating natural gas prices for various industrial sectors.

As recent studies showed, the post-communist countries have relatively the highest level of energy poverty in Europe. The poorest of them still are not explored. So, the authors decided to study this problem for Ukraine as one of the largest and poorest post-communist countries in Europe. This Eastern European country experienced a number of challenges before the pandemic, including a war with Russia in the east of the country, high external debt, high energy intensity and low added value of the economy. The purpose of this study is to measure how deep the energy poverty problem in Ukraine is and how it changed during the COVID-19 pandemic. Applying selected quantitative and financial indicators, the authors showed the problem of energy poverty in Ukraine remained acute at the beginning of 2020, especially in terms of heating. Moreover, its level in Ukraine was three times higher than the average level for the all the EU countries. Furthermore, in 2020, during the pandemic, there were drastic increasing arrears of households on utility bills that meant a new leap of energy poverty in Ukraine. This study did not search for the causes of the identified leap in energy poverty, which apparently connected with the global and local economic and social consequences of the pandemic. However, it revealed the depth of this problem and the lower impact of the nature factor (air temperature) on energy poverty during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. Further research is required to identify the underlying drivers and develop possible solutions to this problem in Ukraine and other European countries suffering from high energy poverty.