Ukraine faces toughest winter yet as energy shortages loom 

BRUSSELS — The power station in Central Ukraine was on fire, rubble strewn everywhere. A hall the size of two football fields, once home to a powerful steam turbine, lay in ruins. 

That was the scene Dmytro, a 41-year-old power unit operator, saw when he entered the facility in May following a Russian missile attack. “There were tears in my eyes,” said Dmytro, who for security reasons cannot be fully named. “It was difficult to see.” 

The most difficult part was yet to come. More than 700 workers soon fanned out across the broken complex to begin the meticulous repair work as fast as possible.

That scene is now playing out across the entire country as winter looms. Thousands of Ukrainians are racing against time to reconstruct, protect and evolve an energy system that has lost half its power generation capacity.

Compounding the challenge: Russia’s pelting air attacks have left Ukraine mostly reliant on nuclear infrastructure that remains unprotected from missile strikes. And there’s not enough time left to fix that.

Already, experts are predicting energy rationing that would leave people without electricity for much of the day. Add in a cold snap and damaging strikes on the nuclear power system, and Ukraine could be facing blackouts of up to 20 hours per day, said Oleksandr Kharchenko, managing director at the Energy Industry Research Center and an adviser to Ukraine’s government on energy.

That means no heat for homes, no power for war-essential factories, and Ukrainians leaving the country in search of refuge.

“I’m very worried,” said Viktoriya Gryb, an independent Ukrainian lawmaker who heads the parliament’s energy security subcommittee. “The situation is really critical, and I hope that international partners … will provide us with assistance as soon as possible.”

It’s an assessment Ukraine’s allies share, as Kyiv appeals to them for rapid assistance.

“We’re anticipating a … very harsh winter,” said one senior United States official, granted anonymity to speak candidly.  “People will die in their homes because Russia is taking out the energy infrastructure.”

On the brink

Each winter during the war so far has been challenging in Ukraine, but the upcoming season will arrive after many months of Russian airstrikes targeting the country’s energy infrastructure.

In late August alone, Moscow fired over 200 missiles and drones at the country’s power production facilities, capping a campaign that has cut Ukraine’s electrical generation capacity by more than 9 gigawatts, according to Gennadii Riabtsev, chief researcher at Ukraine’s National Institute for Strategic Studies and an energy market expert.

That’s eight power plants and over 800 heat supply facilities — all gone. 

“The most realistic scenario” facing the country this winter, Riabtsev said, involves limiting “the supply of electricity to industry and households for eight to 14 hours a day.”

“Russian strikes will obviously continue, and nothing can guarantee the protection of the newly restored facilities from attacks … due to a lack of multilevel air and missile defense systems,” he added.

Attacks on Ukraine’s nuclear plants would be particularly serious, said Kharchenko, the analyst. Kyiv’s reactors currently provide 60 percent of the country’s total power output and any missile strikes on the energy infrastructure supporting those plants could put them out of commission. 

Last month, Ukraine urged the European Union for help, fearing Russia would soon go after its atomic infrastructure. The country’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, warned at the United Nations that such attacks could lead to “nuclear disaster.”

The atomic issue is more serious in part because Ukraine’s other fuel reserves are diminished. The country’s “gas supplies may not be sufficient to meet demand this winter,” said Aura Sabadus, an expert on Eastern European energy markets at the ICIS consultancy, as Kyiv is “uncertain” to meet its gas storage filling targets.

The situation has been made worse this year by the absence of Western traders and companies, who have been “reluctant to inject gas in storage because of repeated Russian attacks and less attractive margins,” she added.

Another unpredictable factor is the weather itself. There is still no “clear signal” indicating how cold the coming months will be in the country, according to Carlo Buontempo, director of the EU’s Copernicus climate change service. However, he noted, a cold snap is “plausible.”

In a worst-case scenario — the temperature plummeting to below minus 10 degrees Celsius and Moscow crippling Ukraine’s nuclear plants — the country could face blackouts of up to 20 hours per day, Kharchenko said.

That would create another humanitarian crisis for Europe. 

“More people will leave Ukraine as refugees and they will go to Europe,” said Gryb, the lawmaker.

The sprint

Ukraine and its partners are now scrambling to prevent the worst outcomes.

In April, Kyiv ordered the country’s top energy firms to protect their energy generation facilities, Kharchenko said. Those include sandbags and gabions — metal cages filled with stones — at the lower end of protection, and thick concrete covers at the higher end.

The defenses “work well” against drones and some missiles, he added, though they cannot withstand a direct hit from more powerful cruise missiles like the Kh-101. Ukraine’s government did not immediately respond to a request for comment from POLITICO.

Still, Ukraine’s nuclear plants will remain totally exposed. Energoatom, the country’s state-run atomic firm, only started to contract protection in late September, meaning defenses will “absolutely not” be ready in time for winter, Kharchenko said.

Ukraine has also gotten creative, decking out more than 20 hospitals countrywide with solar panels in a bid to ensure continued power supplies even if centralized power plants are attacked. But that will “not really” help this winter, admitted Gryb, the parliament member.

And while operators like Dmytro work round the clock to repair Ukraine’s bombed-out power stations, it’s unlikely Ukraine will be able to fix them all.

Part of that is due to the time it takes to find spare parts and install them, according to Artur Lorkowski, director of the Energy Community, an international organization that has been managing procurement for Ukraine’s battered energy sector.

While off-the-shelf items like cables and cranes can be replaced in “roughly a month,” he said, finding and reinstalling bespoke equipment like auto transformers can take “up to one year.”

Energy Community, which hopes to raise €1 billion in funding from Western governments and private donors by the end of the year, is aiming to restore 3 gigawatts of electrical capacity before winter.

Meanwhile, EU grid operator association ENTSO-E announced on Tuesday that it will boost the bloc’s power exports to Ukraine. That will add just 400 megawatts of extra capacity to the country’s grid from Dec. 1, however — far short of what is needed.

More effective than extra energy are additional air defense supplies and expedited spare parts, said Riabtsev, the energy market expert, plus the inevitable humanitarian assistance that will be needed if energy shortages turn dire.

Without more air defense systems, Ukrainians will have to rely on their faith alone, said Dmytro, the plant worker.

“Of course we are worried,” he said. “Every day we are going to work with the hope that there will be no more attacks, that everything is going to be fine.”

Giovanna Coi contributed reporting and graphics to this piece.