Ukraine Struggles to Keep the Power On Under Russian Bombardment
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Today on State of the World, Ukraine struggles to keep the power on under Russian bombardment.

You're listening to State of the World from NPR, the day's most vital international stories up close where they're happening. I'm Greg Dixon. Russia continues to fire missiles into Ukraine more than two and a half years since the full-scale invasion began. And often the targets of those missiles are infrastructure, like power plants.

That means Ukrainians are facing power cuts, which are hard to deal with during their harsh winter. NPR's Joanna Kikis visited a power plant to learn what steps are being taken to keep the lights on and to keep Ukrainians warm.

Two women in hard hats scrape pulverized concrete out of a dark, broken room. They're inside a thermal power plant where they've worked for years. Lesya says she should be operating the conveyor belt that delivers coal, Ukraine's main fuel source, to the plant's furnace. But earlier this week, she said she was going to be working on a new power plant.

But earlier this year, a Russian missile hit the plant. The attack really shook everything up, Lesya says. Look at all this mess. That used to be the conveyor belt. She remembers everyone running to the bomb shelter the day of the attack.

And we stayed there a long time, like three hours, she says. We hoped the missile would hit somewhere else, but it came right at our plant. We heard the explosions from the shelter. The attack left Lesia in a constant state of fear. But she and her colleagues have returned to the plant every day for months to fix it.

This plant is owned by DTEK, Ukraine's largest private energy supplier. Russia has struck all six of DTEK's thermal power plants this year.

At the request of the company, NPR is not disclosing the plant's location or the last names of its workers for security reasons. Oleksandr manages the plant. He says Russia has already attacked it several times. He worries about morale. There was a lot of panic after the first strike, he says. We are civilians. We aren't trained to deal with this.

After the first couple of attacks, though, it became clear that this was not going to end, and we had to get used to it. We walk through the plant on a cold, rainy day. There are teams on cranes and crews on the ground. Birds rest on heaps of rubble and twisted metal. What's your name, Vasyl?

A manager named Vasil steps over a muddy pile of bricks. He's in charge of repairs. Boilers, turbines, generators and also equipment for fuel supply, he says. All this needs to be restored. He says workers are learning how to do this on the fly, following safety precautions in case something collapses.

Outside, a crew is working on the switch yard, which connects the plant to the transmission network. They wear heavy protective suits to prevent electrocution. Andriy is the crew's leader. We replaced all those wires, he says. Over there you can see the new ones. Everything was damaged after the missile exploded.

This is the scene at power plants all over Ukraine. Energy officials say the damage would have been much worse without support from the European Union and the U.S.,

Ukraine's allies have donated air defense systems to shoot down Russian drones and missiles. The U.S. Agency for International Development also supplied raw materials to the Ukrainians for protective measures. Ukraine's state energy company, Ukrainergo, used materials like rebar and concrete to build shelters around critical equipment.

USAID Administrator Samantha Power examined one of these shelters during an October visit to Ukraine. What we have learned over this very difficult wartime period is there is no panacea, but if something slips past air defense, if Ukrainians are not able to shoot down, whether it be a drone or a missile, this physical protection has made a profound difference in keeping energy online.

And so has the seemingly Sisyphean task of fixing energy equipment after every Russian strike. At the DTEK power plant we visited, crews are working overtime. A mechanic named Petro is replacing pipes that pump out coal waste. We just have to finish before it gets really cold, he says. Sooner even. As soon as possible.

At least, he says, before the next Russian missile strike. Joanna Kikisis, NPR News, reporting from a power plant in Ukraine. That's the state of the world from NPR. Thanks for listening.

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