Inside Ukraine’s effort to keep its lights on this winter As Russia intensifies its attacks, Ukraine faces a critical battle to keep the lights on this winter, which officials warn could be the toughest since the start of Russia’s war on the country. MOSHUN, UKRAINE – A sleepy town on the northern outskirts of Kyiv, Moshun was a strategic point in the path of Russian troops on their way to capture Kyiv. Oleksandr Syrskyi, the Ukrainian commander overseeing the defence of Kyiv, fortified the place as it could serve as a gateway into the capital. When the Russian invading troops occupied the town for 16 days, the fierce fighting between both sides damaged 10,000 kilometres of energy infrastructure in the area. “It is a distance comparable as from Kyiv to Los Angeles,” Serhii Buriak, DTEK head of the Buchansky region electrical grid, told Euractiv. “When the region was ultimately de-occupied on 2 April 2022, we only understood the full scale of the damage,” said Buriak, adding that most of it back then was not deliberate but a consequence of the fighting. Around 260,000 households in the region were left without electricity, but power was fully restored within 45 days after the occupation. So far, the inhabitants of Moshun have been lucky – there have been no repeated direct strikes like in the early days of the war. Russia has so far destroyed up to 90% of the country's thermal generation capability, along with damage to a large number of distribution substations and several hydroelectric power plants, according to Ukraine's largest private energy company, DTEK. In a best-case scenario calculated by the energy provider, Ukraine would face an average of five hours a day without electricity this winter - if there are no further attacks and temperatures do not go below -15C.
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