Hundreds of thousands of civilians in Ukraine are facing days of extreme cold with little heat and light as Russian drone and missile attacks on the country’s energy infrastructure continue.
Temperatures in the capital Kiev are expected to remain below freezing for at least the next four days, with bitterly cold winds expected.
“We have to get through the next few days, but it will be a very difficult situation for Kiev,” the city’s mayor, Vitaly Klitschko, said on Sunday. “Severe frost is expected again in the capital, especially during the night,” he said on Telegram.
Klitschko said Ukraine’s energy infrastructure was in an “extremely difficult situation” and had ordered that a joint “heating plant” powered by generators be fully operational. Some of these shelters also have places for people to stay overnight.
According to the Ministry of Energy, residents of the capital only receive electricity for 1.5 to 2 hours a day.
During the Russian strike in early January, one Kiev resident, who was living in an apartment on the top floor of a 16-story building at the time, said he and his wife lost heat, electricity and running water.
The next round of strikes in Russia hit power plants that provide heat to apartment blocks and 1,100 other buildings in the capital, forcing about half of the residents, including families, to move out of their buildings, it said.
He added that the average temperature inside the apartment had dropped to just 3 degrees Celsius (37.4 degrees Fahrenheit).
Residents were told repairs could take two months during the coldest period of the year.
Businesses will also be hit. Backstage Beauty Salon Network says it has invested $400,000 in backup systems, including generators, fuel and batteries. However, a drone crashed into one of the salons, shattering heating pipes and flooding the premises.
“Despite all this spending, weather conditions and the Russian attack are dominating our systems,” the company posted on Instagram on Saturday.
“Almost every day, (Russia) attacks energy facilities, logistics infrastructure, and residential buildings…This week alone, more than 2,000 attack drones, more than 1,200 guided aerial bombs, and 116 missiles of various types were launched by Russia into our cities and villages,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in a Telegram on Sunday.
State-owned power company Ukrenergo said on Sunday it would continue to deal with the effects of two major missile and drone attacks on its power grid this week.
“Due to the level of power shortages and damage to the transmission and distribution networks, emergency power outages are currently not lifted in most areas,” although repair work has reduced the severity of the outages in some areas, the ministry said.
“Recovery work continues at both the power plant and the high-voltage substation that supplies power to the nuclear power plant.”
Another Ukrainian power company, DTEK, said on Saturday that damage to a high-voltage substation had caused a reduction in the output of its nuclear power plant, resulting in a significant loss of available electricity.
The latest Russian attack followed a brief moratorium on attacks on the other side’s energy infrastructure, agreed upon at the request of the United States.
President Zelenskiy said on Saturday that the United States “proposed that both sides reaffirm the US president’s energy de-escalation initiative. Ukraine has agreed, but Russia has not yet responded.”
“The fact that Russia carried out two sets of attacks with more than 400 projectiles within six days of lifting the moratorium on energy attacks demonstrates the Kremlin’s determination to maximize the suffering of Ukrainian civilians and its unwillingness to de-escalate the war or seriously advance peace negotiations initiated by the United States,” the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War said on Saturday.
“The Russian military has also modified its drones and missiles to cause more damage, including equipping Shahid drones with landmines and cluster munitions, and such measures have had a disproportionate impact on civilian and energy infrastructure,” the institute added.
The impact of Russian airstrikes is exacerbated by the reliance on central heating systems, a legacy of the Soviet era, in many urban areas. Because heat is generated in thermal or thermal power plants and then distributed, many residential blocks would be affected if such facilities were targeted.
Destruction of central heating pipes can affect the entire neighborhood. When temperatures drop below freezing, prolonged power outages can cause water in underground heating pipes to freeze and damage.
Some analysts say Russian war planners are looking to exploit this vulnerability in targeting.
DTEK CEO Maxim Timchenko said in 2022: “I think the Russian military is receiving advice from energy experts who are explaining how to cause maximum damage to the energy system.”
