Russia continues to massively shell Ukrainian power plants and power grids. On Thursday, all nuclear power plants had to be shut down, exacerbating the blackout.
Ukraine has been experiencing massive Russian attacks on its energy infrastructure since October. As a result, even before last Wednesday, according to the transmission system operator Ukrenergo, there were hardly any undamaged thermal and hydroelectric power plants. Almost important substations were also hit, often multiple times.
After Russia fired around 70 rockets at the energy objects on Wednesday, Ukraine suffered the biggest power failure since the beginning of the war. Eleven regions of Ukraine were completely without electricity on Wednesday evening, in the capital Kyiv 80 percent of households remained without energy. Electricity was practically only available in the area around the government district, where there are hardly any planned shutdowns because the power grid there is responsible for critical objects. Even there, however, there was no tap water until late Thursday evening.
It wasn’t the scenario of a total blackout, which is considered a realistic threat in Ukraine. However, the Russians have partially achieved their supposed goal of disrupting the country’s unified power grid, even according to Ukraine’s Energy Ministry. This could only be reconnected early Thursday morning. This is exactly what the Russian attacks are aimed at: They want to turn the Ukrainian power grid into so-called power islands so that Ukraine cannot compensate for regional power failures by diverting energy from one region to another. This can lead to blackouts lasting days and weeks, which – like on Wednesday and Thursday – are naturally associated with water, heating and mobile phone failures.
All nuclear power plants off the grid
To achieve this, the Russians attack substations, high-voltage lines, and especially transformers, which are difficult to repair or replace, week in and week out. Often, the Russians repeatedly shell the same, already damaged objects, which means that Ukraine cannot quickly, and certainly not completely, stabilize the power supply. On Wednesday, all three nuclear power plants located in the area controlled by the Ukrainian government had to be at least partially taken off the grid – not because they themselves were the target of the attacks, but because the destruction of the substations meant that they no longer had customers for had their power. For safety reasons, they therefore had to be shut down for the time being. This is also the main reason why the blackout was so widespread.
All regions of the country outside of the annexed Crimea were able to be reconnected to the power grid on Thursday. But this primarily supplies the critical infrastructure. It will be a while before the nuclear power plants start up again. At the same time, it is clear that this time repairs will take longer than previous attacks, indicating that the many attacks have caused extensive damage. While the situation in western Ukraine is even less critical – although also very serious – the situation remains particularly critical in and around Kyiv. Both in the Kyiv region and in the capital itself there were corners where the power supply was gone for 34 hours. In addition, the announcement that the supply of tap water has been restored everywhere in Kyiv does not apply to 100 percent of residents for the time being.
Due to this situation, local authorities are preparing Kievans that power cuts will last two to three hours for the time being and unscheduled power outages will be more frequent. As everywhere in the country, so-called “places of invincibility”, warming rooms in administration buildings or schools with electricity, heat, charging facilities for technical devices and ideally with access to mobile communications and the Internet, are already being used. The latter should not least be taken care of with Starlink terminals.
Many air alarm sirens also fail
Communication in particular has become a bigger problem in Kyiv. For example, in districts like the northern Obolon district, people gather in subway stations where there is better reception and mobile internet, since the network was modernized a few years ago so that people can use the subway where dead spots used to be the norm , have a good reception. Another adjustment: During power outages, police officers have to announce air alerts using megaphones because most sirens are powered.
It is also important for Ukrainians to keep themselves happy because of the conditions. While social media jokes about Black Friday turning into Blackout Friday this year, a line waiting for water sarcastically hopes that cities like Moscow and St. Petersburg will experience a similar fate. “Actually, we don’t mean anything bad to anyone,” says Anastassija, a retired mathematics teacher. “The people who support such an approach would have to try out the consequences for themselves.”
An opinion that is expressly shared by small business owner Yevhen Andriiv. Of course he’s not doing well at the moment, he says. “But every attack of this kind shows us even more that we’re on the right side. Despite all the losses that also occur in business, I’m quite willing to accept them if the terrorists end up leaving our lives for the rest of my life cut off the country.”