Evgeniy Maloletka Instagram – UKRAINE, POWER PLANT ATTACK
“An Armageddon,” recounting the March 22 attack in which Russia unleashed more than 60 exploding drones and 90 missiles across Ukraine. Officials said it was the most brutal attack on the country’s energy infrastructure since the full-scale invasion. “I wasn’t scared at first, but we got scared when we saw the consequences,” said Taras.
The renewed intensity is alarming because of the accuracy and volume of recent strikes, signaling to Ukrainian officials that Russia is armed with better intelligence and fresh tactics in its campaign to annihilate the country’s power generation capacity, and bring its economy to a halt. Moscow also appears to have learned how to most effectively take advantage of Ukraine’s air defense gaps. More such attacks are only inevitable, power workers and analysts said, leaving officials scrambling for ways to defend energy assets.
DTEK, Ukraine’s largest private energy company, lost 80 percent of its power generation capacity in large-scale Russian attacks on March 22 and 29, the company said. Thermal and hydrogen plants were destroyed across the country. Russia targeted transmission networks as well, striking transformers and nodes operated by Ukrenergo, undermining Ukraine’s ability to not only generate electricity but distribute it also.
The attacks, which struck thermal and hydro-electric plants, plunged large swathes of the country into darkness, not seen since the first days of the full-scale invasion. They also tested Ukraine’s proven resilience. Armed with western air defense systems, power workers were previously able to recover fairly quickly after attacks and restore power lines. That was not so after March 22. The Kharkiv region, which borders Russia and was the worst-hit, is still suffering from power outages weeks after the strikes.
“Power infrastructure is something everything depends on, if there’s no power, nothing works: Plants don’t work, people are left without internet, you won’t even know when the missiles are flying at you.”
#ukraine #russia #invasion #war #powerplant | Posted on 05/Apr/2024 10:15:00
