Kiev, Ukraine – A huge transformer was destroyed by the Russian drone strike, which was surgically precise and carried out at a crucial power station in Kiev.
Mykola Svyrydenko, who resides close to Thermal Station 5, a sprawling, Soviet-era structure with two enormous steam pipes that supply the residents of Kyiv with electricity and heat, told Al Jazeera. “There is nothing left to repair.”
He witnessed the massive fire at the power station that erupted on October 10 as a predawn attack. According to authorities, the attack involved 465 drones and 32 missiles that targeted various Ukrainian cities.
Another local, Artyom Gavrilenko, said to Al Jazeera outside his five-story apartment complex, “This isn’t the first time the station has been hit.”
Russia has attempted to attack Ukraine’s energy infrastructure since the winter of 2022, forcing the nation to rely on subzero temperatures to power its homes and industries.
The Kyiv station attack is a recent development in Russia’s plan to obliterate Ukrainian power, transmission, and heating stations, as well as natural gas mines, pipelines, and underground reservoirs, despite having survived those assaults. Analysts believe that this change in Russian strategy will put Ukraine under unprecedented pressure.
The majority of the city’s almost four million-person population was left without power and running water for the majority of the day on October 10. Gavrilenko’s building and other locations. As people slammed into their power banks, some of which were chained to walls or trees to prevent theft.
One of Kyiv’s subway lines stopped operating for several hours, paralyzing traffic on the bridges connecting the city’s left and right banks, causing the city’s transboundary to become inaccessible. Energy Minister Mykola Kolesnik stated at a news conference on Monday that Russia had deliberately begun to attack natural gas distribution facilities.
He said, citing plans to increase the import of natural gas from Europe, “the enemy won’t stop, he confirmed it … only in early October, we’ve seen more than six strikes]on natural gas delivery facilities,” and they will continue.
He said, “We see the change in the enemy’s strategy that results in the regional power generation and transmission deficits.”
As a result of weather reports that predict a particularly cold winter with plenty of snow, millions of civilians are left defenseless against the upcoming winter chill.
Moscow uses hundreds of drones in its attacks, most of which have been modified to fly more quickly, higher altitudes, and dive on their targets with sharp angles to avoid being shot down or intercepted.
Russian missiles were also modified by software updates to veer off predetermined paths and confound sophisticated air defense systems made by Americans, including Patriots.
According to an analysis by the Centre for Information Resilience, a group based in London, the rate of missile interceptions increased dramatically from 37 percent in August to 6 percent in September as a result of the modifications.
The outcomes were devastating.
Russian missiles attacked a nearly finished factory in eastern Kyiv on August 28 that was supposed to house the heavy drones Bayraktar, a type of Turkish design. Two more missiles hit a nearby apartment building, slicing off two of its five floors, killing 22 civilians, including four children, and wounding dozens.
“I woke up and automatically pulled the blanket over my head”, Anatoly, a 63-year-old retiree, told Al Jazeera hours later, explaining how the blanket he was under saved his face from dagger-like glass shards.
He was speaking while puffing on cigarette after cigarette, standing next to a crew of rescue workers and what remained of his possessions – a dishwasher, a couple of shelves and a bundle of clothes.
The problem has been exacerbated by corruption.
In early August, Ukraine’s anticorruption agencies unveiled a giant corruption scheme to inflate the costs of anti-drone installations by up to 30 percent.
A lawmaker, city officials and National Guard servicemen were involved in the scheme, and four unidentified suspects were arrested, the agencies said.
“There must be full and fair accountability for this”, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a video address.
The corruption case underscored Ukraine’s failures to protect energy infrastructure that has been pummelled since October 2022, said analysts.
“Instead of putting]the infrastructure] underground within the three years, they placed sandbags around it and stole funds on meaningless, but imposing ‘ drone interceptors'”, Nikolay Mitrokhin, a researcher with Germany’s Bremen University who penned hundreds of detailed reports on the hostilities, told Al Jazeera.
As a result, the energy infrastructure is now close to collapsing.
“We’ll have a very harsh winter ahead of us”, an engineer at a state-run company that oversees the restoration of power stations and transmission lines told Al Jazeera.
He spoke on condition of anonymity as he is not authorised to talk to the media.
“Judging by the degree of destruction, we’ll hardly be able to repair what is being destroyed”, the engineer added.
Residents of Kyiv, meanwhile, are preparing for power and heat shortages, buying canisters of petrol, power banks, battery-powered electric blankets, rechargeable lamps of all kinds, or unfolding Christmas garlands — which shine, offering some light during blackouts — well before the holiday season.
Many are even snubbing fire prevention regulations by installing wood stoves in their apartments.
Russian President Vladimir Putin “will not catch us by surprise the way he did three years ago”, Olena Korotych, a mother of two, told Al Jazeera outside a supermarket, where she was buying torches.
At filling stations, employees nod understandingly when helping fill canisters – something that is banned in many countries.
A bus stop away from Thermal Power Station 5, Arslan Atamuradov, a migrant from Tajikistan, now uses such natural gas canisters to power the glistening grill at his shawarma kiosk, instead of the electricity he once relied on.
