War in Ukraine: between mines and bombs, with the “soldiers” of electricity

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In Kharkiv, the electricity infrastructure has been badly affected. Hundreds of workers are working hard to repair the network.

From our special envoy to Ukraine, Boris Mabillard

Ia basket swings here and there under the metal cables. From his perch, the technician sees like a bird the fields covered in white, the bare groves, the gutted houses and the charred frameworks. “We bring life. Without electricity, people don’t come home,” explains the team leader, a fiery fifty-year-old with a mischievous smile.

Sergei Nikolayevich is a soldier of the current, he fights with hundreds of electricians, engineers and workers to restore the electricity network in the surroundings of Kharkiv, in Ukraine. A region in the northeast of the country whose civilian infrastructure has suffered because of the bombardments which have systematically targeted them since the beginning of the Russian invasion and which have never ceased. Despite the destr…