2023-09-05 21:03:02
Under a beautiful late summer sun, the mayor of Kiev, Vitali Klitschko, went on Tuesday to a construction site located on a bank of the Dnieper river, where workers are already busy preparing for winter despite the difficulties caused by war.
“Summer is over and we are preparing for the season (when it will be necessary) to heat up. This will be difficult, ”assured Klitschko, inspecting the renovation works of the district heating network in the Podil district, in the center of the Ukrainian capital.
According to the official, “more than 60% of the city’s (energy) infrastructure was damaged” last year, Kiev having been widely targeted by an incessant bombing campaign by the Russian army aimed at destroying the so-called Ukrainian sites ” reviews”.
Shelled infrastructure
Between October 2022 and March 2023, Russia thus pounded Ukrainian infrastructure, causing numerous power, water and heating cuts, plunging millions of Ukrainians into darkness and cold, in a country where temperatures are largely negative in winter.
These strikes have since disappeared on the Russian side, but the damage is not trivial: it takes weeks, even months, for the damaged infrastructure to be repaired and to be operational again.
“We have limited funding and the workers (in the sector) are sent to the army to defend our homeland”, explains Oleksandre Pelypychyne, manager of the heating network of the local company KyivTeploEnergo. Not to mention “air alerts, missiles”, he lists. “All of this disrupts our work, of course,” he added.
Work is progressing
However, the repair work has already progressed well. Municipal authorities assured mid-August that more than 60% of kyiv’s energy infrastructure is ready for this winter.
Oleksandre Kouliche, a 62-year-old worker, says he is proud of his work: “I think (it) serves as a contribution to victory,” says this man with a thick white mustache. “Because we do (it) so that life can go on,” he wants to believe, after more than a year and a half of Russian invasion in the country.
#kyiv #preparing #difficult #winter