Ukrainians are forced to organize as Russia continues its offensives against the country's energy infrastructure.
A third winter of war. In kyiv, temperatures are already well below the 0°C mark and Russia is increasing attacks on the country's energy infrastructure.
Nearly 65% of the country's energy capacity has been destroyed since the start of the war at the end of February 2022: power cuts, preventive or not, are frequent and result in the absence of heating, which is nevertheless vital during this period of extreme cold. .
“The enemy is attacking electricity production and transmission facilities throughout Ukraine. The network operator has urgently initiated preventive power cuts,” said Herman Galushchenko, Ukrainian Energy Minister, last November 17.
No power, no light
In order to cope with these preventive cuts, many Ukrainians are choosing to invest in alternative energy production systems. “I have generators, batteries that store electricity. I would like to buy more things but it is a significant financial investment,” explains a resident to BFMTV.
“We bought a new portable lamp because yesterday there was a long outage and we had nothing left. We had no power, no light for at least four hours,” adds another, who mentions a long power outage earlier in the week.
“More than 48 hours without heating once”
Met by BFMTV, Olga talks about how she had to adapt her life in the face of power cuts. “Here these are candles in this box, there are around a hundred in case my charging station runs out of battery,” she explains.
“Last year, we spent more than 48 hours without heating once and we survived. We kept our morale up so it's okay, we're ready, we're not afraid of missiles so it's certain that we won't I'm not afraid of being cold,” she insists again.
In winter, the harsh winter can last several months and snow can fall for up to sixty days in the capital kyiv. Temperatures can also remain negative for many weeks.
At the end of the 1002nd day of war, and when the Russian army was significantly advancing in the Kursk region, the American decision to authorize kyiv to launch long-range missiles in the direction of Russia, but also to provide kyiv with anti-personnel mines , could change the situation.
On Wednesday, Moscow already accused kyiv of having launched six missiles towards its territory.
