Ukraine is racing to repair power plants wrecked by Russian missile strikes before winter, with hundreds of workers clearing rubble by hand at one ruined facility that could leave an entire region without heat and electricity.
Early one morning this month, Russian missiles slammed into the plant, owned by Ukraine’s largest private energy company, DTEK, tearing apart its roof and walls. Turbines and boilers were buried under tonnes of debris that workers must now shift with shovels and wheelbarrows before engineers can even assess the damage.
“Right now, everyone has shovels and wheelbarrows as we try to reach the equipment,” said Oleksiy, a technician at the plant who asked to be identified only by his given name. “The main thing is to get to it, assess its condition and only then make plans for repairs and restoration.”
Russia resumed large-scale attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure in mid-autumn, seeking to weaponise the country’s harsh winters by leaving millions without heat and electricity, a tactic it has used every year since its full-scale invasion in 2022. Moscow denies deliberately targeting civilians.
This winter could prove harder than previous ones. The United States has cut deliveries of Patriot interceptors, the only weapon in Kyiv’s arsenal capable of stopping Russian ballistic missiles, amid a global shortage, and Russia has deployed new jet-powered attack drones that are more difficult to shoot down because of their speed.
Last winter, the coldest of the war, DTEK’s five plants came under heavy attack 11 times. Already this November, the first month of the current heating season, Russia has attacked three of DTEK’s plants with dozens of missiles and drones, forcing the stations to halt electricity generation.
DTEK workers have restarted its plants from scratch more than 70 times during the war. But with the damage growing more destructive, analysts warn this winter could be the most difficult yet. Many Ukrainian cities, including Kyiv, are already experiencing long blackouts.
“It’s difficult to say how quickly we can recover,” DTEK chief executive Maxim Timchenko told Reuters. “So we do everything possible to make enough power generation capacity in Ukraine to get through the winter.”
Russia is also targeting transmission lines to stop electricity from operating plants in western and southern Ukraine reaching consumers in the centre and east, where local facilities have been heavily damaged. Electrical substations linking Ukraine’s nuclear plants to major cities have become particular targets, though both sides have avoided striking the nuclear stations themselves.
With the transmission lines damaged, central and eastern regions, including Kyiv, are being left without electricity for up to 18 hours a day. At the same time, power plants in western Ukraine are being forced to export significant volumes of electricity to Eastern Europe instead, data shows.
The Kyiv-based think tank DiXi Group said Ukraine increased its electricity exports by just over 40% in the week between 2 and 8 November, while up to two-thirds of Ukrainian consumers could simultaneously have been experiencing blackouts.
“We have enough power generation in the country,” Timchenko said. “The problem is about transmission.”
Energy Minister Denys Shmyhal had forecast after summer repairs that Ukraine’s power capacity would reach 19.6 gigawatts by November, roughly half its pre-war level but in line with last winter’s peak consumption. Reuters said it could not confirm whether that level had now been reached.
Sources: Reuters — “Ukraine races to repair power plants wrecked by Russian missiles before winter”, https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/ukraine-races-repair-power-plants-wrecked-by-russian-missiles-before-winter-2026-11-13/
