Ukraine’s power supply is close to critical as Russian strikes on the country’s energy grid leave millions of people facing long blackouts and freezing homes, with winter setting in.
Rolling power cuts have been in place since October, after Russia stepped up its attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure. In Kyiv, some families are now going without electricity for up to 20 hours a day.
01. Four to five hours of power a day
Daryna Kulchytska, a single mother of two living in a seventh-floor flat in Kyiv, told the BBC her family had only four or five hours of electricity in recent days — and never at the same times.
“For two hours we have electricity, then for eight hours we don’t,” she said. She races to cook dinner and finish her work from home while the power lasts. Just before 7:30pm, the lights go out — and stay out until morning.
Officials are worried that life will quickly become impossible for millions of Ukrainians if power supplies cannot be kept at a minimum of four hours a day. Some privately warn that point is close already.
The cuts started earlier this year than last winter, and they are already lasting longer. Kyiv has been hit hardest: metro trains and trolleybuses have at times been brought to a standstill, and hundreds of thousands of people across the country have gone without power in recent weeks.
02. Power station reduced to rubble
The BBC visited one of Ukraine’s largest power stations — which it has not named for security reasons — after what it described as the most powerful and devastating attack of Russia’s campaign against Ukrainian energy targets.
A ballistic missile strike reduced the plant to twisted metal and broken pipes, with its turbines buried under rubble. The site is completely offline, and workers said it will not carry electricity again before the end of winter.
Volodymyr Kovalenko, who has worked at the plant for 25 years, was in the control room when the missiles struck at 3am. Repair work is constantly interrupted by air raid alerts every 15 to 30 minutes — seven during the BBC’s four-hour visit — and a cruise missile was intercepted just 5km (3 miles) away while reporters were there.
03. Generation is enough — the grid is the problem
President Volodymyr Zelensky says Ukraine still has enough generating capacity to meet demand. The problem, he says, is getting electricity to homes and businesses when so many power lines and substations have been hit.
Maxim Timchenko, chief executive of DTEK, Ukraine’s largest private energy company, said Russia was already putting the damaged grid under even greater pressure than last year, and that overstretched air defences cannot protect all of the country’s critical infrastructure.
Ukraine has hit back by striking Russian oil refineries. Ukrainian energy operators also reported that Russian strikes earlier this week left more than 850,000 customers without power in the Dnipropetrovsk and Kharkiv regions.
With temperatures falling, Ukrainian officials are watching the four-hour power threshold closely — the line below which, they say, daily life for millions becomes unsustainable.
