Zelenskyy called the Russian attacks on infrastructure «energy terrorism» and vowed that the attack will not change the course of the war.
“The very fact that Russia is resorting to energy terrorism shows the weakness of our enemy,” he said. «They can’t beat Ukraine on the battlefield, so they try to break our people this way.»
The fate of Ukraine’s power grid has become a top priority in the White House, with State Department, Defense Department and Energy Department officials scrambling to find equipment in the US or abroad. to ship to Ukraine, a senior administration official said.
“This is something that is raised in conversations from the president down. It’s a top priority,» the official said, adding: «It’s not some kind of sideshow here.»
heat and light
Despite 12 major attacks on the country’s power grid since October 10 with more than 1,300 missile and drone salvoes, Russia has failed to deprive Ukraine of heat and light.
Utility companies have asked Ukrainians to reduce electricity consumption as much as possible. Authorities schedule daily rolling power outages in cities across the country that can last up to 10 hours in a day or for consecutive days in recently attacked areas or near front lines.
“It all depends on where the shell lands,” said Stankin Dmytro, 38, who lives in Kyiv with his wife and 6-year-old son. “The last two times they landed nearby and hit a local substation. We spent about 12 hours without electricity, water or heating.”
And every night, Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities are plunged into darkness, with street lights turned off to save energy. The hum of generators, a lifeline for many Ukrainians and businesses, echoes through the streets.
As the attacks continue, Ukrainian repair teams with more than 1,000 technicians are in a race to repair substations and power lines blown up ahead of another wave of Russian attacks, according to the state-owned company that oversees the power grid, Ukrenergo.
Company officials believe that Russian engineers who know the vulnerable points of Ukraine’s electrical system likely advised the Russian military on their target.
“In my opinion, they consulted with Russian electrical engineers,” said Volodymyr Kudrystski, chairman of Ukrenergo’s board of directors. “Who else would understand how the Ukrainian power grid works and have knowledge about the factors that could distort the operation of the power system?”
Ukraine’s security service said a Russian «agent» was detained for allegedly passing the coordinates of critical infrastructure sites to Moscow, including power generation plants in the Kyiv region.
The Russian missile campaign against the power grid «is not just a contest between Ukrainian air defense systems and Russian missiles, but also between Russian engineers and Ukrainian engineers,» Kudrystski said.
Russian shelling killed five Ukrenergo engineers trying to repair the network and wounded nine, it said.
The energy company has approached governments around the world and hundreds of private companies in Europe, North America and Asia to secure crucial equipment, Kudrystski said.
For Ukraine’s grid, the kingdom’s currency is the autotransformer, a 200-ton piece of equipment that converts high-voltage electricity from a power plant to a lower voltage for the end user. Transformers are not easy to come by and foreign utility companies don’t have a large surplus on hand, Kudrystski said.
“We need to find this team abroad. And unfortunately, we don’t have time to wait until it’s made,” he said. «The Russians are bombing specific equipment that is slow to be made and delivered to Ukraine.»
It can take 10 months from the time a new transformer is ordered to come online, he said.
Ukraine’s request for autotransformers at the moment is mainly focused on Soviet-era equipment in Eastern European countries, which is more compatible with Ukraine’s high-voltage grid. But Ukraine is also trying to plan for the medium term and has ordered new transformers from companies in the US and Asia, according to Ukrenergo.
“We know how to ensure that the network works in the future and how to prevent a humanitarian catastrophe for tens of millions of people during the winter,” Kudrystski said. «But to do that, we need some help.»
US assistance
Kudrystski was among a group of top Ukrainian officials who met in Kyiv this week with a high-level delegation from the Biden administration led by Assistant Secretary of State Wendy Sherman.
On Thursday, the Biden administration announced it would work with Congress to provide an additional $125 million in funding «to support Ukraine’s power and electricity grid against Russia’s continued attacks on public services and other civilian infrastructure.»
In November, the Biden administration said Washington would provide $53 million to help secure critical power grid equipment for Ukraine, with the first batch of supplies arriving last month, according to the State Department.
But the logistics of transporting massive autotransformers have proven daunting, the senior US administration official said, presenting government agencies with an unknown challenge.
“This team is not lying around. It is not stored in many places. It is made to order,” said the official.
The largest transformers are too large to be transported by air and have to be disassembled and placed on ships, the official said.
water and cell phones
The attack on the country’s electricity grid has had repercussions on other infrastructure, such as the water supply and mobile phone service.
Aid groups worried that the orchestrated crackdown on Ukraine’s electricity infrastructure would trigger a complete shutdown of the grid with catastrophic consequences in winter. But Ukraine’s utilities have improvised solutions, and an unusually mild winter in Europe so far has helped ease pressure on power supplies, aid workers said.
Ongoing power outages have yet to disrupt the flow of humanitarian cash assistance from aid groups, with money transferred to bank accounts or post office accounts, said Michael Young, Ukraine country director for the international aid group Mercy. Corps.
“If the network goes down in some substantial way, what happens to that electronic banking system? So far, it has been resilient, but we also need to prepare for the contingency of it not working, at least partially, in the event there is a major impact to the network,” Young said.
Like other charities, the aid group is using Starlink satellite generators and equipment to operate during power outages, and has set up «warm centers» where local staff members can sleep in a warm place with access to water and energy, Young said.
Roberto Vila-Sexto, country director for the Norwegian Refugee Council, an aid group, said the power outages have made humanitarian work «even more difficult.» The effects of power outages have been much more severe in rural areas, he said, and searching for firewood poses fatal risks in heavily mined areas.
Oleksandr Komarov, chief executive of Kyivstar, Ukraine’s largest cell phone operator, said that while some phone towers and equipment have been damaged or destroyed, the biggest disruption to the country’s cell phone network is that «there is no electricity «.
“What we need is probably a few hundred generators and thousands of [lithium] batteries,” he said, adding that he expected another shipment of generators from donor governments soon.
His company is also using Starlink satellite equipment as temporary emergency backup, especially in recently reclaimed areas where the telecommunications infrastructure has been severely damaged, Komarov said.
Although the assault on Ukraine’s infrastructure has not damaged Ukraine’s position on the battlefield or broken the country’s will to fight, it has inflicted «enormous damage» on the economy, he said.
The longer Ukraine has limited internet and phone service, the more damage it suffers, he said.
“Ukraine as an independent economy is unsustainable at the moment. Every new attack worsens the situation,” Komarov said.
In Kyiv, Dmytro Yatsenko, 38, has managed to keep his business of four nail salons open despite power outages and Russian missile attacks. Revenues have been cut in half and customer flow has slowed, he said.
But he keeps the business running with the help of generators and a staff of 30. “The number one task is to maintain the business, to maintain the staff and the people who work with us. We got through everything together,” Yatsenko said.
He said he thinks of his compatriots in the army fighting on the front lines. «How can I give up if they don’t give up?»