Ukrainians enjoy the beginning of spring. The nights are still cold, but they are coming from a winter of Russian missile attacks that have cut off electricity, heating and even their water.
The winter was very harsh, but now it’s over, said President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Ukraine is still hot and the country is unbreakable, the message read.
As of Thursday, Ukraine had just gone more than three straight weeks without a blackout and even had a surplus in the system.
There have also been no more Russian attacks for three weeks and it looked as if Vladimir Putin’s fight to supply Ukraine was over.
“Yes, we do, but who started it?” he said in December, blaming Kiev.
At this point, it was a much more desperate story. As much as half of the energy infrastructure was damaged and a Ukrainian nuclear safety expert warned the situation was near critical.
But during those quiet weeks, Russia had stockpiled weapons. It fired 81 rockets in the early hours of Thursday, leaving four regions struggling with emergency power outages. In Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city, half a million people were still without electricity on Friday.
“It’s totally cold now. We have food, but only part of it is cooked,” Oleksii said as he watched his cellphone battery life drop to 14%.
Another 500 people live in his apartment block, and when he went to his local “invincibility center” to turn on his phone, there were too many people with the same idea.
Another 150,000 people were left without power in Zhytomyr, a two-hour drive south of the Belarusian border. The mayor said the next few weeks would be critical and the city west of Kiev was at risk of power cuts.
“We had three weeks without attacks and we had power,” said Eugene Herasymchuk. “And the power in the system allowed the local authorities to get the trolleybuses and trams running. That was a big step, because public transport was paused before that.”
Kiev was also hit and a hospital treating 700 people was without heating or hot water for several hours. But it didn’t take long for many Ukrainians to get back on track.
“It’s safe to say that Ukraine has won on the energy front,” said Tetyana Boyko of the citizen network Opora, praising the fleet of energy workers and international aid. “Let’s pray but I think the worst case scenario is over.”
Winter may be over, but Oleksii believes the fight to save Ukraine’s power supply from Vladimir Putin’s missiles will continue as long as Russia has the ability to attack them.
Every thermal and hydroelectric power plant in Ukraine has been damaged since Russia launched its attack on energy infrastructure last October. Kiev had already lost use of Europe’s largest nuclear power plant in Zaporizhzhia, which is in Russian hands.
Substations have been reduced to chunks of twisted metal, no longer capable of converting electricity into electricity for homes and businesses.
For two weeks in the dead of winter, the BBC followed teams of engineers and technicians who rushed to repair the damage the rockets had done.
A substation has been hit by missiles or drones six times and replacing these damaged transformers will take time.
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Transformers soon became Ukraine’s most important requirement. It took more than the world could produce in a year, and so far only one high-voltage transformer has been shipped while dozens of lower-powered machines have arrived.
As the winter wore on, Ukrainian forces became increasingly adept at shooting down Russian missiles and drones.
But this week only 34 of the missiles were destroyed because Russia used other high-velocity weapons. These included Kh-47 Kinzhal hypersonic missiles, as well as anti-ship and anti-aircraft missiles.
“They can do huge, huge destruction,” said an industry official.
By the time Russia’s all-out war against Ukraine began in February 2022, 15 nuclear reactors were operating at four power plants. Six of these reactors were located in Zaporizhia, which were seized by the occupying military in the early days of the invasion.
For months, the power plant has been at the center of a heated nuclear dispute amid accusations that Moscow wants to connect it to Russia’s power grid.
The other three power plants are southern Ukraine and Rivne and Khmelnytskyi in the west. Together they now produce half of Ukraine’s energy.
That may sound grim, but a combination of an unusually mild winter and sheer hard work means Ukraine has pulled back from the brink and optimism is palpable.
Power plants were restored and repaired. An industry source told the BBC that as the days got sunnier and warmer, it would become increasingly difficult for Russia’s military power to terrorize its country.
The east-central city of Dnipro has endured several deadly rocket attacks over the winter, and this week was no different.
But there have been no problems with the energy supply for weeks.
“The city has changed. Finally there are street lamps again and walking the city streets is no longer scary,” said Inna Shtanko, a young mother with a son under the age of two.
Cooking and a hot shower are part of everyday life again for her family. “Our psychological state has improved significantly because our family and other mothers can plan our day better.”
There is a similar story in Kherson, which was occupied by Russian forces until they withdrew across the Dnipro River last November.
Life was hard for several weeks after the Russians left the southern city without basic services.
“We had no electricity for about a month and a week, then we had it for two hours a day, then gradually it stopped breaking,” said local entrepreneur Alexei Sandakov.
Now it has a regular electricity supply, although the pressure on the system is much less than before the war because the population of 55,000 is a fraction of the population before the Russians invaded.
Population numbers have fallen across Ukraine, with more than eight million refugees outside its borders, and that too has put less strain on energy infrastructure. Consumption has dropped and the refugees have not yet come back, an official noted.
The general feeling is that the damage done by this final wave of rockets will be quickly repaired.
There was significant damage, but engineers are highly skilled at restoring power within days of even a major attack.
“It’s like a competition: how fast can they damage us and how fast can we fix it. And we are winning this competition,” said Oleksandr Kharchenko, director of the Research Center for Energy Economics in Kyiv.
Eugene Herasymchuk believes things are looking up in Zhytomyr. “A lot of Ukrainians say that it’s better to have a cold and a dark winter than 100 years with Russia – so I think we can deal with that.”
According to Kharchenko, Ukrainians now have everything on their side, from improving the weather to support from international donors and the professional staff in the energy sector. But he is more cautious about the future.
“I’m not saying we won the energy war, but I can say we won the energy war this winter.”
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