NASA has revealed satellite imagery of the Ukrainian capital, which has been plunged into darkness by power outages linked to Russia’s bombing of its infrastructure.
“Russia will never achieve its goal of plunging Ukraine into total darkness,” a spokeswoman for private Ukrainian energy company DTEK told British media Sky News. “With each attack, electrical engineers are bolder and more creative in finding solutions to keep the system running,” she said.
But these quick repairs in the workplace have their limits. Satellite images of Kyiv at night provided to Sky News by Nasa show that light levels in Ukrainian urban areas have halved since October, leaving millions of Ukrainians without electricity – or heating, without lights – as the winter and its sub-zero temperatures set in.
Since October’s attack on the Crimean Bridge, Russia has increased its missile salvos on Ukraine’s civilian energy infrastructure. According to the Prime Minister, all electricity, gas and coal-fired power plants and 40% of the high-voltage grid were damaged. In mid-December, Russian President Vladimir Putin also gave assurances that he would continue his strikes against the country’s energy infrastructure.
Dark residential areas
Sky News, which received these images, focused on the city of Kyiv. The first high-resolution image provided by the US Space Agency before the war began in January 2022. In this picture we can see Kyiv shining brightly.
Then we see in two more recent images (from November 2022) that the capital is largely darkening. Only a few streets in the city center (around Maidan Square) still seem relatively well lit. In the rest of the city, only a few streets are lit here and there.
“Weather Conditions Delay Repairs”
Some residential areas, such as Troieschyna in the north-east of the city, are almost completely blacked out as national operators have opted to give priority to keeping electricity in the center of the capital.
These NASA images show that since the first wave of attacks in early October, some infrastructure has been repaired and partially restored by Ukrainian services. However, more recent attacks appear to have brought the country’s energy system to the brink of collapse. End of November, six million households, for example, were left without electricity for several days, according to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
“The situation is further complicated by the weather conditions, which are slowing down the repair work,” Volodymyr Koudritskiï, head of national operator Ukrenergo, said in mid-December.
NASA images also show that lighting in several medium-sized Ukrainian cities has been reduced by half. Pictures that even the energy infrastructure of cities like Lyiv, far from the front lines, was deliberately targeted. In Kherson, Ukraine’s energy infrastructure was “virtually destroyed” during the December 9 withdrawal of Russian forces, and in Odessa, which is the target of strikes, the situation is “complicated.”
Jeanne Bulant Journalist BFMTV