Russian attacks on Ukraine’s power grid touch Kiev, causing blackouts ahead of peak demand

KIEV, Ukraine (AP) — Continued Russian attacks on Ukraine’s power grid in recent weeks have forced the war-torn country’s government to impose nationwide blackouts. However, without sufficient air defenses to deter attacks and enable repairs, shortages could worsen as demand increases in late summer and the bitterly cold winter.

The Russian air strikes on the power grid since March have led to power outages again in the capital Kiev, where there had not been power outages since the first year of the war. The attacks included a barrage in April that damaged Kiev’s largest thermal power plant and a massive attack on May 8 that targeted power generation and transmission facilities in several regions.

In total, half of Ukraine’s energy system was damaged, said Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba.

Entire apartment blocks in the capital went dark. According to the city’s military administration, at least 10% of consumers were cut off from the grid.

For many, it’s a foretaste of what could happen if Ukraine doesn’t find alternative sources of electricity before winter.

Since there is no end to the attacks on the power grid in sight and there is no way to adequately defend against them, there are no quick solutions to the electricity shortage, explained Energy Minister Herman Halushchenko. Ukraine is asking its Western allies for more air defense systems and spare parts to repair its Soviet-era facilities.

“With every attack we lose additional power generation, so it just goes negative, negative, negative,” Halushchenko said Tuesday as he stood in front of a coal-fired power plant in central Ukraine that was destroyed in an April 11 attack. Any effort to repair the facility would be in vain until the military can defend it from another attack.

“Should we repair (power plants) just so that they (Russians) can continue their attacks while we cannot defend ourselves?” the minister asked.

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock accompanied him on the factory visit, underlining Ukraine’s desperation to close the power gap as quickly as possible.

The story goes on

The first major test for the network will take place in July and August, when consumption can match the levels of the winter months with temperatures below freezing, the minister said.

In mid-May, the residents of Kiev felt the consequences of the Russian attacks. A cold snap pushed up consumption and forced Ukrenergo, the largest transmission system operator, to introduce controlled blackouts across the country. Ukraine cannot generate enough electricity to meet evening peaks, and the shortage is greater than the country’s ability to import electricity from Poland, Slovakia and Romania.

The April 11 attack on the power plant destroyed generators, transformers and turbines – all the necessary parts to generate electricity, said Yevhen Harkavyi, the technical director of Centerenergo, which operates the plant.

Five rockets hit the facility that day, and on Tuesday workers were still clearing away the rubble when snow-like tufts of poplar wool fell through a hole in the roof.

The plan for the winter is to restore power generation as much as possible, Harkavyi said. How this will happen is unclear, he admitted: “The situation is already too difficult.”

Ukraine hopes to source parts from long-closed German plants. Harkavyi said Ukrainian teams recently traveled to Germany to evaluate equipment, but it was taken offline because it did not meet European Union environmental standards. It remains to be seen how willing European allies will be to invest in Ukraine’s coal-fired power sector, given their own greener goals.

Teams were still evaluating how to return the equipment to Ukraine, he said.

“That’s the first question,” he said. “The second question is what Ukraine is screaming about: We need active protection with air defense systems, and we hope that Minister (Baerbock) has seen the extent of the destruction and will do everything to ask the whole world for help.”

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Samya Kullab, The Associated Press