Photo copyright: Reuters
Massive Russian missile and drone attacks have led to significant problems in Kyiv. The capital of Ukraine faces constant and increasingly serious problems with energy and water supply.
“Kyiv operates in extremely difficult conditions. The city authorities are doing everything to ensure the life support of the capital and are working on various options for the development of events, as the enemy is intensifying attacks on energy and heat generation, and on water supply systems,” city mayor Vitali Klitschko said on Thursday.
He emphasized that in order to protect infrastructure facilities, air defense is, first of all, extremely important.
(This is a translation of an article from the BBC Ukrainian Service website. The original can be read here.)
“With such an intensity of destructive enemy attacks without the protection of key facilities by air defense systems, the restoration, stable operation and general existence of these facilities is a big question! After all, when several missiles or a swarm of drones arrive at once, no protective structures can cope with it,” the mayor said.
President Vladimir Zelensky, in turn, called the situation in Kyiv “particularly difficult.”
“The situation in Kyiv is now especially difficult: people and enterprises have many hours of power and water outages... But no matter how difficult it is, throughout the country there must be the most efficient and complete work of government agencies, regional and local authorities, every company that provides people with electricity, heat and water, regardless of the form of ownership of such companies,” he said on November 4.
Water shortages
At about 2 p.m. on Thursday, November 5, city authorities reported a loss of power to water utility facilities.
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Just the day before, on November 4, it was announced that water supplies would be restored following past Russian attacks.
But on the afternoon of November 5, water began to disappear again in most areas of the capital.
“As a result of an emergency loss of power to the Kievvodokanal facilities, there are interruptions in water supply in all areas of the capital,” says a statement from the enterprise responsible for the city’s water supply. It says that Kievvodokanal specialists, together with power engineers, are taking all possible measures to restore water supply as quickly as possible.
“The emergency situation arose as a result of an enemy attack on the Ukrainian energy system and damage to energy equipment that supplies electricity, including to Kyiv,” Klitschko noted.
Photo by Kievvodokanal
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First Deputy Head of the Kyiv City State Administration Petr Panteleev explained the problems with water by the fact that the capacity of the water supply systems in most districts of the capital cannot be powered by generators.
The situation is different only in the Obolonsky district, where 300 thousand consumers live, but a 1 MW backup power system maintains their stable water supply.
“The capacity of most of the water supply and sewerage system of the city of Kyiv is such that, roughly speaking, the generators cannot handle it,” the official said.
According to him, for backup power supply of these facilities, 104 generators were purchased and several mini-power plants with a capacity of 16 MW were installed.
By the end of the year, it is necessary to build several more stations with a total capacity of 40 MW.
However, work on the construction of such stations is still ongoing; they are very long and expensive.
Prime Minister Sergei Koretsky announced on November 5 that the government would transfer an additional 10 generators to Kyiv for water utility facilities.
“People should not be left without water supply every time because of Russian attacks on the power grid. It is critically important to provide water utilities and sewerage systems with backup power sources,” the prime minister noted.
Problems with light, heat and transport
The decrease in temperature on November 4–5 (according to the Ukrainian Hydrometeorological Center, it dropped to 4-6 degrees and will continue to decline in the coming days) caused greater electricity consumption.
“The daily maximum consumption was recorded on the evening of November 4. It was 4.9% higher than the previous day's high on Tuesday, November 3. The reason for the changes is the continuing decline in air temperature, which forces consumers to use electric heaters,” Ukrenergo said in a statement.
According to the BBC, the increase in energy consumption in Kyiv has led to numerous local failures in the networks. Several dozen houses were cut off from electricity. Repair times are very long due to the heavy workload and shortage of repair teams in the capital.
On the evening of November 4, groups of residents of Obolon and the Akademgorodok microdistrict blocked local roads, demanding attention to problems with light in their homes. According to the BBC, in some of them there has been no light for almost a week - since October 30.
Kyiv authorities assure that the energy situation in the capital has been stabilized.
“We have stabilized the situation after massive attacks on the energy infrastructure of both the country and the Kyiv energy hub,” said the deputy head of the capital’s administration, Panteleev, at a briefing on the morning of November 5.
However, Ukrenergo announced on Thursday the introduction of emergency shutdowns in the capital and region. Stabilization schedules do not apply.
“Energy workers are working to restore stable power supply as quickly as possible. Emergency outages will be canceled after the situation in the energy system has stabilized,” the energy operator said in a statement.
Emergency shutdowns have been introduced regularly in recent days.
Electric transport has suffered due to energy problems in the capital.
On the evening of November 3, city authorities announced a temporary suspension of tram and trolleybus services.
On certain routes, some tram and trolleybus routes will be duplicated by buses.
The authorities also reported problems in the Kyiv metro.
“Due to sharp fluctuations in voltage from external power sources on metro lines, temporary suspension of traffic or an increase in intervals between trains is possible. After stabilization of the external power supply system, train traffic will be restored,” the Kyiv administration said in a statement.
Serious problems with light and heat arose in Kyiv last winter, but such frequent metro stops due to power supply problems as this year are happening for the first time.
photo copyrightKievpastrans
Due to problems with light, the launch of heat supply in Kyiv is delayed.
The lack of power and backup generation in individual houses does not allow them to run circulation pumps to supply heat.
In addition, the capital's heating network main facilities were damaged due to shelling.
As an example, Pyotr Panteleev cited the South Bridge, where a main pipeline collapsed due to a Russian missile attack.
Only on November 4 was it possible to lift a new part of the pipe from the barge and secure it to the bridge instead of the damaged one.
However, the Kyiv authorities assure that the supply of heat to residents began on November 2, continues simultaneously in all areas and is going according to plan. According to Panteleev, there are no “critical anomalies” in this process so far.
The heat connection should last about 10 days, that is, until November 12.
“The capital made the decision to start the heating season in the residential sector a few days before the sharp drop in temperature. Today, almost 45% of residential buildings in the city have already been connected to heat,” Vitali Klitschko said on the afternoon of November 5.
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