Kiev residents only have electricity for an hour and a half to two hours a day. Work to repair the damage inflicted on infrastructure by Russian attacks could take two months
Hundreds of thousands of civilians in Ukraine face several days of extreme cold with very little heat and light, following continued attacks by Russian drones and missiles on the country’s energy infrastructure. In the capital, Kiev, temperatures well below zero and very cold winds are expected for the next four days at least.
“We have to overcome the next few days, which will be very difficult for Kiev,” said the city’s mayor, Vitaliy Klitschko, on Sunday. “Severe frosts are expected again in the capital, especially at night,” he wrote on Telegram.
Klitschko said that Ukraine’s energy infrastructure was in an “extremely difficult situation” and that he had given instructions for community “heating points”, powered by generators, to be fully functional. Some of these shelters allow people to stay overnight.
According to the Ministry of Energy, the capital’s inhabitants only receive electricity for one and a half to two hours a day.
During a Russian attack in early January, a Kiev resident who lived in an apartment at the top of a 16-story building at the time said he and his wife were left without heat, electricity and water.
The next Russian attack hit the power plant that provided heating for the apartment block, as well as 1,100 other buildings in the capital, and the resident said that about half of the residents had abandoned the building, including his family. The average temperature in the apartment dropped to just 3 degrees Celsius, he added.
Residents were told repairs could take two months – during the coldest part of the year.
Companies also suffer. The beauty salon chain Backstage Beauty Salon says it has invested $400,000 (more than 338,000 euros) in backup systems, including generators, fuel and batteries. But a drone hit one of its halls, breaking a heating pipe and flooding the premises. “Despite all these expenses, weather conditions and Russian attacks prevail over the system,” the company posted on Instagram on Saturday.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Telegram on Sunday: “Almost every day, the (Russians) attack energy facilities, logistical infrastructure and residential buildings… More than 2,000 attack drones, 1,200 guided aerial bombs and 116 missiles of various types were launched by Russia over our cities and towns this week alone.”
Ukrenergo, the national electricity company, said on Sunday it was continuing to deal with the fallout from two massive missile and drone attacks on the power grid this week.
“The level of power shortages and damage to electricity transmission and distribution networks currently prevent the lifting of emergency blackouts in most regions,” but repair work has made power cuts less severe in some regions, he said. “Repair work continues in both the power plants and the high voltage substations that supply energy to the nuclear plants.”
Another Ukrainian power operator, DTEK, said on Saturday that damage to high-voltage substations had caused a reduction in output at nuclear plants, leading to a significant loss of available electricity.
The latest Russian attacks followed a short-lived moratorium on attacks by each party on the other’s energy infrastructure, agreed at the request of the United States. Zelensky said on Saturday that Washington proposed “that both parties once again support the US president’s energy de-escalation initiative. Ukraine has agreed, but Russia has not yet responded.”
The Washington-based Institute for the Study of War said on Saturday: “The fact that Russia conducted two sets of strikes with more than 400 projectiles within six days of the expiration of the moratorium on energy strikes demonstrates the Kremlin’s determination to maximize the suffering of Ukrainian civilians and the unwillingness to de-escalate the war or seriously advance US-initiated peace talks.”
“Russian forces have also modified their drones and missiles to inflict more damage, for example by equipping Shahed drones with mines and cluster munitions, and these measures have disproportionately affected civilian and energy infrastructure,” the institute added.
The consequences of Russian attacks are worsened in many urban areas due to dependence on centralized heating systems, a legacy of the Soviet era. Heat is generated in thermal or combined heat and power plants before being distributed, so if these facilities are hit, many residential blocks will be affected.
The destruction of central heating pipes can affect an entire neighborhood. When temperatures drop below freezing, a long power outage can cause underground heating pipes to fracture if the water inside freezes.
Some analysts have noted that Russian war planners try to take advantage of this vulnerability in their targets. “I think the Russian military is being advised by its energy experts and is explaining how to do maximum damage to the energy system,” DTEK Executive Director Maxim Timchenko said in 2022.
