What is the reality of living with Russia as your neighbour? How is the brutality of the ongoing, full-scale invasion seeping into every aspect of the day-to-day lives of Ukrainians? What about energy?
Neighbours
As Canadians, living next door to the United States of America has its perks. Sure, we have gone to war once but for the greater part of our young history, the USA has been a friendly giant of a neighbour.
Not so with Ukraine and their neighbour, Russia.
Brooke Manning shares the reality of living under invasion from a neighbour. Power generation is a huge issue with winter coming on. Brooke is the community manager at the Kyiv Independent.
Blackouts
Kyiv is now experiencing severe, continuous power outages. Because these blackouts are the result of Russia’s air attacks that have decimated Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, there is no clear date we can expect the situation to get better, even as energy companies scramble to restore generation capacity before winter.
Rolling blackouts returned to Ukraine in mid-May. Russia launched a wave of large-scale air strikes on Ukrainian power plants and energy infrastructure. Since then, the energy situation has grown worse: Ukraine’s largest private energy company DTEK has lost 90% of its power generating capacity as a result of Russia’s attacks.
Right now in Kyiv, official energy schedules predict between four and six guaranteed hours of electricity a day – with addresses broken up into different groups, based on which power line you’re located on. 
Unstable Power
Without stable power or an accurate blackout schedule, it’s nearly impossible to predict when you’ll be able to complete a load of laundry or how long your groceries will last in the refrigerator. If you don’t have power in the morning, you won’t be able to plug in a kettle, an iron, a blow dryer, or any of the things you might routinely use before heading out.
If you live on the upper floor of a high-rise apartment building, you’ll often be walking all 15 flights of stairs.
You’ll typically lose Wi-Fi. If power isn’t supplied to cell phone towers, mobile internet speeds plummet. If you’re far from the closest air raid sirens, being offline means you may miss the time when you’re supposed to take shelter, because your mobile app won’t go off.
UPDATE – 26/08/24 – Russia launches largest attack on Ukraine since start of full-scale invasion, Air Force reports. Russia launched 127 missiles and 109 drones, while Ukraine downed 102 missiles and 99 drones, according to the Air Force. Russian strikes hit several civilian, energy, and fuel facilities, including a dam in Kyiv, part of the Kyiv Hydroelectric Power Plant.
Winter is Coming
It’s hard to predict a date when we’ll live with consistent power again in Kyiv. There is no other choice but to keep going. As inspiring as it is to see both the resilience and ingenuity that comes from navigating life without power, it’s disturbing how quickly the violence of Russia’s war becomes a normalized aspect of day-to-day life.
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Thanks for sharing this Bob. I had no idea.
If I had heard about the challenges with power they went right by me.