Kyiv Planning for Total Evacuation if It Loses Electricity
November 6, 2022
Kyiv Planning for Total Evacuation if It Loses Electricity
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The city is also establishing 1,000 heating centers for its 3 million residents, as Russia pounds away at civilian targets.
KYIV, Ukraine — As they struggle to maintain an electricity grid heavily damaged by Russian missiles, officials in the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, say they have begun planning for a once unthinkable possibility: a complete blackout that would require the evacuation of the city’s approximately three million remaining residents.
The situation is already so dire, with 40 percent of Ukraine’s energy infrastructure damaged or destroyed, that municipal workers are setting up 1,000 heating shelters that can double as bunkers while engineers try to fix bombed-out power stations without the needed equipment.
To try to keep the grid from failing altogether, Ukraine’s national energy utility said on Saturday that it would continue to impose rolling blackouts in seven regions.
The tremendous strain on Ukraine’s ability to provide power is the result of the widespread bombardment by Russian forces of critical energy infrastructure across the country, a tactic that analysts say President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia has resorted to as his troops have suffered repeated setbacks on the battlefield.
The damage caused by the Russian strikes has heaped new suffering on Ukraine’s civilians and forced officials to reckon with the possibility that further damage could render them unable to provide basic services.
“We understand that if Russia continues such attacks, we may lose our entire electricity system,” Roman Tkachuk, the director of security for the Kyiv municipal government, said in an interview, speaking of the city.
Officials in the capital have been told that they would be likely to have at least 12 hours’ notice that the grid was on the verge of failure. If it reaches that point, Mr. Tkachuk said, “we will start informing people and requesting them to leave.”
For now at least, the situation is manageable, and there were no indications that large numbers of civilians were fleeing Kyiv, he said. But that would change quickly if the services that relied on city power stopped.
“If there’s no power, there will be no water and no sewage,” he said. “That’s why currently the government and city administration are taking all possible measures to protect our power supply system.”
1 comment
The city is also establishing 1,000 heating centers for its 3 million residents, as Russia pounds away at civilian targets.
KYIV, Ukraine — As they struggle to maintain an electricity grid heavily damaged by Russian missiles, officials in the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, say they have begun planning for a once unthinkable possibility: a complete blackout that would require the evacuation of the city’s approximately three million remaining residents.
The situation is already so dire, with 40 percent of Ukraine’s energy infrastructure damaged or destroyed, that municipal workers are setting up 1,000 heating shelters that can double as bunkers while engineers try to fix bombed-out power stations without the needed equipment.
To try to keep the grid from failing altogether, Ukraine’s national energy utility said on Saturday that it would continue to impose rolling blackouts in seven regions.
The tremendous strain on Ukraine’s ability to provide power is the result of the widespread bombardment by Russian forces of critical energy infrastructure across the country, a tactic that analysts say President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia has resorted to as his troops have suffered repeated setbacks on the battlefield.
The damage caused by the Russian strikes has heaped new suffering on Ukraine’s civilians and forced officials to reckon with the possibility that further damage could render them unable to provide basic services.
“We understand that if Russia continues such attacks, we may lose our entire electricity system,” Roman Tkachuk, the director of security for the Kyiv municipal government, said in an interview, speaking of the city.
Officials in the capital have been told that they would be likely to have at least 12 hours’ notice that the grid was on the verge of failure. If it reaches that point, Mr. Tkachuk said, “we will start informing people and requesting them to leave.”
For now at least, the situation is manageable, and there were no indications that large numbers of civilians were fleeing Kyiv, he said. But that would change quickly if the services that relied on city power stopped.
“If there’s no power, there will be no water and no sewage,” he said. “That’s why currently the government and city administration are taking all possible measures to protect our power supply system.”