The announcement came on Wednesday, October 19, directly from the mayor of kyiv. While some of the inhabitants were still waiting in the shelters and metro stations of the capital for the end of an air alert triggered at the start of the afternoon, the next day would start the “heating season”, signaling the start of central heating in the city. Also signaling the approach of a first winter at war for Ukraine, while the same afternoon resounded in the sky of the city, the explosions of Russian cruise missiles and drones shot down by the anti-aircraft defense .
An hour before the mayor of kyiv’s announcement and despite an air alert in progress, a group of employees of the company DTEK, one of the main electricity distributors in the country, were busy finishing the last checks of in a transformer supplying nearly 1,000 households in the suburbs of kyiv. Nothing but very usual, ensure the employees gathered around the yellow truck of the company: “We replace faulty or old equipment, we check the oil levels. Everything, in fact, Quietly explains Volodymyr Tolotchko, a 45-year-old deputy chief engineer with more than twenty years of seniority at DTEK.
A third of power plants destroyed
For two weeks, these energetics – the word designating in Ukrainian and in Russian the workers of the energy sector –, protected by their construction helmets, occupy a leading role on what certain Ukrainian media now call the “energy front”. The consequence of a Russian bombing campaign specifically targeting the country’s power plants and transformers. According to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, nearly 190 strikes destroyed about a third of the country’s power plants between October 10 and 18.
“It’s very different from the beginning of the war, note Volodymyr Tolotchko. In March, there were only a few isolated cases of infrastructure hit by the strikes. Today, they are targeting them specifically. » In kyiv, Russian rockets and drones failed to hit their target. But 200 kilometers to the southwest, they fell for the third time in a week on a power station in the Vinnytsia region.
“War has returned to kyiv”
Concern is mounting in Ukraine, as temperatures, around 13 degrees during the day, are beginning to drop. And if October 20 should coincide in Kyiv with the start-up of central heating, it will also be a ” hard day “recognized the day before the deputy head of the presidential office Kyrylo Tymoshenko: “If we don’t have enough energy, we risk power cuts across the country (…), it is therefore strongly necessary to reduce electricity consumption tomorrow from 7 am to 11 pm in all regions. »
“We are worried, of course.confirms Yaroslav Khodyko, also busy checking the proper functioning of the transformer. We know that if the network does not work, there will be no heating, no light, people will no longer be able to cook, will not be able to do anything. » At the beginning of the week, the Russian strikes have already plunged the dormitory districts on the left bank of kyiv into darkness for a few hours. “With the idea that each attack can plunge a neighborhood into darkness, there is the feeling that war has returned to kyiv,” adds the technician. How long will the energy battle last in Ukraine? The answer to this question depends on an unknown: the stocks of Russian missiles and drones.