(Bloomberg) — Russian missile and drone strikes targeting Ukrainian power infrastructure over the past week have failed to knock electricity supply off the grid for any prolonged period, according to International Energy Agency data.
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The IEA figures show that Ukrenergo, the grid operator, has managed to keep supplying electricity to much of the country even with hundreds of Russian strikes targeting power plants and electricity substations across the nation.
Russian officials say the onslaught, which continued on Tuesday, is aimed at destroying energy infrastructure. That risks not only cutting off local heat and power as the weather turns colder, but would also pressure Europe, which has grid connections with Ukraine.
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in a tweet that Russian attacks have destroyed 30% of Ukraine’s generating capacity and other critical infrastructure since Oct. 10. Strikes against civilian targets make any negotiations impossible, he said.
Ukrainians have responded to Ukrenergo’s appeals to avoid unnecessary energy usage by turning down boilers and electric heating.
“Our dispatchers are very reluctant to enter an emergency shutdown,” the company said Tuesday on its Telegram channel. “They don’t like them any more than you do. Be energy-efficient.”
Russia’s Oct. 10 missile blitz originally knocked 2 gigawatts of power offline, equivalent to about 14% of electricity supplied the week before. Before the latest overnight attacks, more than 1.3 gigawatts of generating capacity had been restored, according to the Paris-based IEA.
While the bombardment has led to electricity outages in parts of the country, Ukrenergo has been able to blunt the impact by shifting power loads on its transmission system. After Russia hit coal-fired plants last week, Ukraine compensated for the shortfall with hydropower and nuclear output. Reactors covered about 55% of demand on Monday.
Read more about how hits on Ukrainian power plants pose risks to Europe
Russian air strikes targeted power generators in Kyiv, the deputy head of Ukraine’s presidential staff, Kyrylo Tymoshenko, said on Telegram. Three people were killed, and parts of the capital lack water and power, halting some trolleybuses and trams, while repairs are continuing, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said in a Telegram post.
The city of Zhytomyr, 140 kilometers (87 miles) west of the capital, also lost power briefly after being targeted by three missiles, and a facility was hit in Dnipro, northwest of Russian-occupied territory, disrupting water and power supplies.
Two energy facilities operated by DTEK Energy BV, Ukraine’s largest private energy company, were hit Tuesday, causing “serious damage,” the company said on its website, without specifying the locations for security reasons. Both had been hit during previous attacks. Seven employees were injured and one killed, according to preliminary information.
Battles over Ukraine’s electricity grid and generating capacity have featured prominently since the first week of the war, when Russian forces captured the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant. Europe’s biggest atomic station has six reactors and is designed to supply about a fifth of the country’s power needs.
Some analysts have characterized the attacks as an electricity war and warned that a cascading grid failure could imperil Ukrainians when temperatures plummet. As the country’s network has been connected to Europe’s since March, an outage would have the potential to cross borders, destabilizing neighboring grids as well as increasing refugee flows.
Ukraine’s total electricity generation has plunged by about 45% since the war began on Feb. 24, forcing civilians to flee and industries to shut down.
(Updates with death toll in ninth paragraph, DTEK in 11th.)
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