When hundreds of Russian missiles and drones assaulted Ukraine on Monday morning, Victoria Novorzhytska\u2019s power went out first. The water supply was cut immediately after that. <\/p>\n
She knew immediately the day would turn into a struggle. She works from her home in Zhytomyr, west of Kyiv, and no power means no work. <\/p>\n
Russia launched its biggest ever aerial attack against Ukraine on Monday, hitting energy infrastructure across the country. More strikes landed on Tuesday morning, killing five people and raising the death toll from this week\u2019s attacks to 12. <\/p>\n
The Ukrainian government and the country\u2019s major energy companies would not disclose the scale of the disruption from the onslaught, but it is clear it knocked out power for millions. <\/p>\n
Ukraine\u2019s largest private energy company DTEK announced rolling blackouts for number of regions on Monday, including Kyiv, Odesa, Dnipropetrovsk and Donetsk. <\/p>\n
For people on the western outskirts of the capital, this meant six hours of darkness followed by two hours of power between 2 a.m. and 4 a.m. <\/p>\n
The scheduled cuts add inconvenience to people\u2019s lives, but they at least allow them to plan around power outages \u2013 so that residents of high-rise apartment blocks don\u2019t get stuck outside when the elevators are not working, and that people charge up vital electronic devices while the power is on. <\/p>\n
That these blackouts are already needed in the summer is particularly worrying. This situation could be far worse in a few months\u2019 time, when demand for electricity tends to be higher in the cold, dark winter. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe key task is to get through the winter, to provide energy supply to critical infrastructure, people and the economy,\u201d Ukraine\u2019s Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal told reporters on Tuesday. <\/p>\n
Shmyhal said the focus now was on repair and rebuilding. \u201cWe do this all the time, after each Russian shelling billions are allocated (and) equipment is brought to Ukraine.\u201d <\/p>\n
Ukrainians have become used to living under the constant threat of blackouts. Monday\u2019s attack stood out because of its massive scale, but it was not unusual in terms of the means Moscow used and the targets it chose. Energy infrastructure has long suffered from Russian strikes. <\/p>\n
In Kyiv, authorities have set up \u201cpoints of invincibility,\u201d tents and other areas where people can charge their electronics and use the internet during power cuts. <\/p>\n
The frequent attacks on energy infrastructure have also led many Ukrainian cities to invest in solar power. Kyiv mayor Vitaliy Klitschko said the city has been subsidising the purchase of generators and solar panels by housing cooperatives and condominiums so that they can be independent of the energy network. The government has also put tax cuts and grants into place to help people get the equipment. <\/p>\n
The vast majority of businesses, from tiny food stalls to huge shopping malls, now have their own generators, their deep rumble synonymous with blackouts. <\/p>\n
Maksym Holubchenko, a 25-year-old barista in Kyiv said his cafe\u2019s generator saves it from having to shut down every time there is a power cut after Russian strikes. It happens about once a month at the moment, he said. <\/p>\n
Kyiv was hot on Monday and the thermometer on the wall in Holubchenko\u2019s cafe showed 34 degrees Celsius (93 degrees Fahrenheit). The generator is not powerful enough to cover the needs of a normal service in the the cafe, so Holubchenko has to make compromises. <\/p>\n
\u201cIn the winter we have enough power from the generator. In the summer we have to switch off the air conditioner and\u2026 parts of the coffee machine,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
The cafe has sockets ready for customers who need to charge up their phones and other gadgets, as well as use the internet during power cuts. <\/p>\n
Russia has been targeting Ukraine\u2019s energy grid since its full-scale invasion in February 2022 but this year Moscow began specifically targeting power generation facilities: thermal power plants, hydroelectric power stations and even energy storage facilities. <\/p>\n
Olha Matskiv, a legal expert at Global Rights Compliance, an international NGO that is advising Ukraine on investigating and prosecuting war crimes, said the attacks are \u201ccreating conditions inside Ukraine that are incompatible with life.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a tactic that the Russian army is using to drain Ukraine\u2019s internal reserves, both human and financial, slowing down the country\u2019s economy, which cannot develop when businesses are closing due to lack of electricity,\u201d she added. <\/p>\n
The government has been trying to fortify Ukraine\u2019s energy network so that it can withstand strikes, first wrapping them to protect them from shrapnel and then using reinforced concrete defenses that can withstand some direct hits. <\/p>\n
On Tuesday, Prime Minister Smyhal said the measures are working. \u201cDozens of missiles attacked substations on Monday and we lost a very small amount of our equipment out of dozens of hits yesterday thanks to the protection,\u201d he told reporters. <\/p>\n
He added that Ukraine is experimenting with huge protective structures the size of three football fields to cover bigger power stations. <\/p>\n
\u201cThey are extremely expensive, and their economic feasibility is still not clear. The cost of such protection for six substations is 188 billion hryvnia ($4.5 billion). This is an incredible amount of money that partners are not ready to give and that is not in the state budget,\u201d Smyhal said. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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