Improved air defense and Russia's diminishing missile stocks point to the worst attacks on Ukraine's energy grid being over, said Ukrenergo CEO Volodymyr Kudrytsky in an interview with Bloomberg on Feb. 16.
“The adversary has largely lost the ability to inflict significant damage,” said Kudrytsky, adding that the coming months will nonetheless not be easy.
Over 40% of Ukraine's energy grid has been destroyed by Russian mass bombardments since September 2022, resulting of hundreds of millions of dollars in direct damage.
Despite the odds, says Kudrytsky, repair teams are continuing to restore power supply to the country at a steady pace. He voiced his desire that Ukraine would gather enough autotransformers before the next winter.
Ukraine has been finding ways to ease the stress of power outages on the population. On Feb. 13, it was announced that Ukrainian telecommunications company Ukrtelecom launched free Wi-Fi zones in the cities of Kyiv, Dnipro, Lviv, Odesa, and Kharkiv. Russia's ongoing attacks against Ukraine's energy grid have heavily impacted all five cities.
Following the Nov. 23 missile attacks across Ukraine, Ukrainian authorities also set up 4,000 "invincibility centers" across the country where residents can warm up, charge their phones, and connect to the internet.
Ukraine intends to triple the number of “invincibility centers” across the country, Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said during the Cabinet of Ministry meeting on Dec. 20.
U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) representative Samantha Power told the Associated Press on Jan. 18. that the US intends to provide $125 million to Ukraine to help electric repair crews in Ukraine
