Volodymyr Kudrytskyi, chief executive of Ukrenergo, said “almost all” of the country’s large non-nuclear power plants had been hit, as well as more than 30 percent of the grid’s routing substations. Describing the position as critical, the energy boss said Ukraine had asked Western countries for needed spare parts last week – and repeated calls for more missile defense systems to help prevent devastating attacks. “This is the largest missile attack on electricity infrastructure in history. So the impact is huge. Unfortunately, the situation is critical. They are specifically trying to destroy the Ukrainian electricity system, which supplies tens of millions of people,” he said. If Russian attacks continue, “power cuts in Ukraine will become longer and longer,” Kudrytskyi warned, adding that despite Ukrenergo’s efforts, it was not possible to repair the grid as fast as it was being destroyed. “It’s obviously much easier to launch missiles than to restore substations,” he said. The focus now is to keep the lights on. “Prior to these missile attacks, the main goal was to provide as much power as our customers needed. However, now we are talking about the survivability of the system,” Kudrytskyi told the Guardian during an airstrike alert in Kyiv. Electricity was also needed to maintain natural gas supplies, the chief executive said. “If customers spend a lot of time without power and if heating systems are not connected to electricity, this will create big, social humanitarian problems.” He said Russia wanted to create “a humanitarian disaster” in Ukraine. Power outages lasting hours are becoming more common in most parts of the country after a sustained Russian bombing campaign targeting the power grid that began last month. For now, Ukrainians seem to be dealing with the added uncertainty and hardship without much complaint, accepting that it is an inevitable challenge they must overcome. Under the headline ‘No Power?’, a co-working space in Kyiv, Kooperativ Kyiv, has advertised that it has two power supplies and two internet providers so people can work uninterrupted from the holidays. “We will spend these moments together,” the ad read. Ihor Sudakov, who lives next to a power station in eastern Kyiv that has been hit repeatedly, said he tried to prepare for further outages. “We bought power banks – we keep at least three charged at a time,” he said. “We have also ordered this type of charging station that can charge a refrigerator and an electric stove. Our building only has electricity, so if the power goes out we should be able to cook.” As a double backup, he said, he had bought a propane camping stove. “I’m not worried that Russia will try to strike [Kyjv] power station again – I know they will. It’s part of their terror tactic … so it’s about trying to be as autonomous as possible.” An attack involving 55 cruise missiles and five drones took place on Monday, targeting the country’s hydroelectric plants for the first time. The Russian missiles targeted the electrical infrastructure of the hydroelectric plants, Kudrytskyi said, but not the dams themselves, which are considered more durable. Although 44 of the missiles were said to have been intercepted by Ukraine, the damage caused on Monday was significant, the chief executive said. “It was consistent with the scale of the attack, which was very large. This was a massive attack. huge damages [was] caused.” On Monday, 350,000 homes lost power in Kyiv and 80% of the water supply was cut off after the attack, although both had been restored by Tuesday. Another 20,000 remained without supplies in the Kiev region, the governor, Oleksii Kuleba, said. In Kharkiv, where the central power station was damaged on Monday, Kharkiv Hospital No. 4 is operating at a reduced voltage – 180 W instead of 220 W – and there were concerns that this could damage the hospital’s equipment, said Oleksandr Dukhovsky, head pediatrics. surgery at the hospital. He said the hospital had less than five days worth of diesel to supply its backup generators. “We are not afraid, but we understand that we have to be careful,” Dukhovsky said, adding that the hospital staff is not losing faith and is willing to do whatever is necessary to beat Russia. Ukrainian officials are not releasing photos of damage to power plants and substations because they don’t want Russia to see the exact impact of the attacks, but some facilities are known to have been damaged. In Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, which is now less than 50 percent controlled by Russian forces and their proxies following recent Ukrainian advances, utilities have been intermittent or absent for months. Dmytro Myshenin of Kramatorsk-based NGO Vostok SOS said supplies had improved in some towns, but were still lacking in places considered too close to the conflict or heavily damaged. Cities such as Kramatorsk and Sloviansk had their water and gas supplies reconnected after the frontline was pushed back and people returned, he said. But in areas closer to the front lines, people have spent months living in squalid conditions without running water and natural gas, and some without electricity as well. “There are a lot of people surviving on portable wood stoves, and not enough of them,” Myshenin said. “We need more of everything.” A week ago, Ukraine sent lists of parts it needed to the US, UK, EU and other Western countries because “we need a lot of this equipment now,” Kudrytskyi said. He added that there was an urgent need for “Western defense systems, which have proven very effective against Russian missiles.” However, the chief executive rejected claims that Ukraine could have prepared better. “We ask for defensive systems all the time. I mean, this is nothing new,” he said. “It has nothing to do with our military needs. This is a humanitarian disaster that must be prevented for tens of millions of people in Europe.” Kudrytskyi said it would be possible for Ukraine – which was energy self-sufficient before the Russian attacks – to buy electricity from Europe. But that would be only partial help because of damage to the country’s grid, which would make it harder to route electricity across the country, he said. “We can buy some energy from the EU because the Ukrainian electricity system is connected to the European electricity grid,” Kudrytskyi said. “However, we may not be able to deliver this important power to some areas if the grid is damaged.” He also warned that there is a risk of transmission congestion. Big cities are at particular risk, he said, because of their huge energy demand. Among them, he listed the main urban centers of the country, Kyiv, Kharkiv, Lviv, Odessa, Zaporizhia and Dnipro.
