'It’s a second front line' — The Ukrainian power plant workers battling to make repairs under Russian attacks
A DTEK worker walks near damaged equipment and a building destroyed by Russian attacks at an undisclosed location in Ukraine on Dec. 5, 2025. (Oleksii Filippov / The Kyiv Independent)
"It’s an interesting feeling during an air attack. Danger, danger, and again danger," says Yurii, a Ukrainian energy worker, from the control center of a war-scarred thermal power plant.
Yurii works for DTEK, Ukraine’s largest private energy firm, as a shift supervisor of the turbine boiler department. His last name, like the name of the plant and its location, cannot be disclosed for security reasons.
The company has suffered six mass Russian attacks since October, including on the thermal power plant where Yurii works. While other employees run to shelter during strikes, some, like him, need to stay in the sandbag-laden control room to ensure the plant’s safe operation.
"It is quite difficult to work in such conditions, but necessary," he told the Kyiv Independent during a site visit to the plant on Dec. 5.
Yurii is one of DTEK’s 55,000 employees facing Russia’s continued brutal and systematic campaign to wipe out Ukraine’s energy infrastructure. Thermal plants, which convert heat to electricity, made up 23.5% of Ukraine’s pre-war power generation and are one of Russia’s main targets.
Last year, Russian strikes wiped out 90% of DTEK’s thermal power generation by the summer.
This year, neither DTEK, owned by Ukraine’s richest man Rinat Akhmetov, nor the Energy Ministry has disclosed exactly how bad the energy situation is. But employees at the plant told the Kyiv Independent that attacks are getting worse and worse.
The mass attacks on energy facilities, which Russia began in October 2022, cause power outages across the country, leaving millions of Ukrainians in the dark. As temperatures drop, the protracted power and heating outages are pushing Ukraine to the brink of crisis, particularly for the elderly and vulnerable, the U.N. reported on Dec. 9.
The strikes don’t just cause blackouts – they take lives. At DTEK’s thermal plants, Russian attacks have killed five employees and injured 62 since the start of the full-scale invasion. It’s a highly risky and grueling job, but employees still show up every day.
"For us, this is a second front line," Vitalii, a senior operator at the plant, told the Kyiv Independent.
"We feel the responsibility to bring warmth and light to people. We try to make sure people feel the blackouts as little as possible."
The plant itself resembles the apocalyptic scenes of many front-line towns. Several burnt-out cars litter the parking lot, while nearly all the windows are shattered or boarded up. The roof and walls of the main facility were torn apart in direct strikes, sending debris flying everywhere.
"We don't want to live in darkness. We want it to be warm and light at home. And that depends on us."
The repair team hammers and welds the plant’s giant steel body as they stitch up the costly damage. DTEK spent $161 million on restoring its thermal plants in the first 10 months of the year.
Surrounding the repair team lay mangled pipes and charred equipment, including transformers, which Ukraine is desperately procuring from other countries to replace its depleting stock. With strikes showing no sign of slowing down, DTEK recently called on partners again for more critical equipment supplies.
"Honestly, it hurts to see. It used to be so beautiful here, so clean," said Vitalii.
Like many of the workers, he has spent decades at the plant and can’t imagine leaving, even if the attacks worsen.
But that doesn’t mean employees are used to the strikes. Seeing the missiles and drones slam into the plant hits the nervous system, said Dmytro, one of the department heads at the plant. The first thing he thinks of is his colleagues, many of whom are friends, and whether they are safe.
"Then you think about the equipment, and about how much work will be needed to restore it," he added.
After the last attack, he and his colleagues immediately grabbed buckets and shovels to clear the rubble. It’s a brutal cycle of destruction and repairs, but if the employees leave, the plant will shut down, and the power will stop.
DTEK already knows what that feels like. The company has lost two of its thermal plants to Russian occupation, including the Kurakhove plant in Donetsk Oblast, early this year.
Moscow wants to shut down this plant too and drive Ukrainians into darkness, said Dmytro. He is bracing for more attacks, but feels bound by duty to continue the job he has been doing for 20 years.
"Whether I do my job or not determines the lives of many Ukrainians," he said.
"We don't want to live in darkness. We want it to be warm and light at home. And that depends on us."
Author's note:
Hi, this is Dominic. I’ve written about Russia’s brutal attacks on Ukraine’s energy facilities for years now. But this was my first time seeing the damage in person and it was truly harrowing. We can only show you a slice of what the war-torn plant looks like for security reasons, but it is like something out of an apocalyptic film set. I have so much respect for the energy workers that face these attacks head on and bring power to Ukraine, even if it's only for a few hours every day. If this story touched you, then please consider supporting the Kyiv Independent by becoming a member so we can keep bringing you stories from Ukraine’s energy front line. Thank you.
