Ukraine Seeks Unglamorous Antidote to Putin's Energy Blitz

Ukrainian officials are pushing foreign partners to provide routine but potentially life-saving electricity generators and gas turbines as Kyiv braces itself for a grim winter of freezing temperatures and continued Russian missile attacks seeking to collapse the national energy grid and economy.

With Moscow's invasion seemingly fatally bogged down in the muddy battlefields of eastern and southern Ukraine, the Kremlin has turned to a campaign of ranged attacks on critical Ukrainian infrastructure, which critics say amount to war crimes but Moscow claims to be legitimate military action.

In response, Ukrainian authorities are desperately looking to plug the gaps in the mauled energy network and keep vital Ukrainian facilities and services running.

Oleksandr Merezhko, the chair of the Ukrainian parliament's foreign affairs committee, told Newsweek that additional generators are "really important for humanitarian reasons and also for our small and medium-sized businesses."

"We need to go through a tough winter and generators might be very helpful," Merezkho said, noting he recently returned from trips to South Korea and last month's ASEAN summit in Cambodia.

Seoul committed 20 "very powerful" generators, Merezhko said, adding he had spoken about the issue with other ASEAN delegations including from Australia.

"I hope they will provide generators and other humanitarian aid to get through the winter," Merezhko said.

'Humanitarian Catastrophe'

Kyiv's energy push is picking up steam. President Volodymyr Zelensky and his top officials have long been warning of the challenges winter will bring. With the first snows now falling thick on battlefields and major cities alike, Western partners are expanding humanitarian efforts.

Last month, European Parliament President Roberta Metsola and Dario Nardella, the mayor of Florence and the president of Eurocities—a network of Europe's more than 200 largest cities—launched the "Generators of Hope" campaign to direct generators to Ukraine.

"They need practical support to get through the winter," Metsola said. Nardella said the total number of donated generators could be as high as several hundred.

Latvia is among the countries to have already donated generators, sending hundreds by the end of November, according to LSM, the Latvian state broadcaster.

Hard-pressed local authorities in Ukraine's major cities are on the front lines of this new infrastructure war. The challenges and tensions are obvious, even prompting a rare public spat between Zelensky and Kyiv's Mayor Vitali Klitschko.

Serhiy Kiral, the deputy mayor of the western city of Lviv, told Newsweek that more than half of Ukraine's power generation and distribution system had been damaged by Russian missiles.

Blackouts and power rationing are designed to prioritize critical infrastructure, Kiral said, but further attacks might yet "may result in an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe with winter approaching and temperatures already below zero."

"The only way out is swift supply of effective air-defense systems in sufficient quantities to close Ukrainian skies and increase missile shootdown efficiency from 80 to 100 percent, and supply of powerful diesel generators—500 kilowatts to 2.5 megawatts—in large quantities to ensure all critical infrastructure—heat, water, communications—is functioning through the winter."

"We fully depend on international aid, and in our case, also our partner cities," Kiral said. "For example, about five powerful generators are already on the way from our sister-city Freiburg."

'Three Lines' of Defense

Generators should be considered the last line of Ukraine's defense against Russia's offensive, Pavlo Kukhta—a former acting economy minister and currently an adviser to the energy ministry—told Newsweek from Kyiv.

"There's three lines of defense," Kukhta said. "The first one and most efficient one is anti-air defenses by which the missiles just get shot down. The second one is that repairs to the grid are done quickly and that the necessary components are provided; the grid is a very complex technological thing, so any kind of damage to it is hard to repair. And the third thing is generators."

"Any kind of energy generation capacity right now is quite important." Kuhkta added, noting that Russia is trying to "disintegrate" the Ukrainian grid primarily by destroying substations and disconnecting consumers from the stations and plants generating the power.

Ukraine is competing with European businesses and consumers for generators, demand for which has increased due to pan-European concerns about energy shortages and prices, Kukhta said. The reliance of generators on fuel—largely diesel or gas—might also have undesirable effects. "Additional fuel supplies might be necessary," Kukhta said.

The Ukrainian government is alive to this danger. Kyiv is already giving priority border-crossing to vehicles carrying petroleum products. "I witnessed how it works myself, when crossing a border in Medyka and observed two or three tanker trucks bypassing the queue all the way to the front," Kiral said.

The U.S. last month announced $53 million in support for Ukraine's energy grid, which will help Kyiv buy transformers, circuit-breakers, vehicles and other equipment vital to repair the damaged network.

The Energy Community Secretariat has asked European firms to donate spare parts to help repair works, while a Turkish company is in talks about providing floating "powerships" to augment Ukraine grid.

Generators a 'Short Term' Fix

Oleksandr Kharchenko, the chief of the Energy Research Center think tank and an adviser to national grid operator Ukrenergo, told Newsweek that while basic generators are important for humanitarian purposes, and small-scale residential and business use, they will not be sufficient to safeguard critical infrastructure.

"This is a good short-term solution if you have no option," Kharchenko said, but added that more powerful but small, truck-sized gas turbines—generating up to 35 megawatts—and additional transformers are needed to keep the energy grid alive.

"If you have no critical infrastructure and if you have no heat supply in the big cities, generators will not save you," Kharchenko said.

"If Kyiv, for example, is equipped with 10 or 12 units, it means that Kyiv will be on the safe side for all critical infrastructure; no risks with heating, no risks with water channels that might lose electricity supply." Kharchenko estimated that 35 to 40 such gas turbines would cover the critical infrastructure needs of all Ukraine's major cities.

Kharchenko suggested Ukraine needs around $250 million for its gas turbine needs and $200 million for additional transformers. The $53 million committed by the U.S. is "a good start," he said, "but we need a little bit more. It's quite expensive equipment and Russians know very well what to target."

Gas turbines would prove more difficult targets. "They're very small, container-sized," Kharchenko said. "They're very hard to find where they are installed. They're not on old Soviet maps which they use to attack our energy infrastructure."

Kharchenko said conversations about supplying gas turbines are underway with partners including the U.S., South Korea, Norway, Japan, and several United Nations agencies. "We've already found a lot of units," Kharchenko said. "Now we're looking for money to buy them."

There have been seven waves of major missile attacks on Ukrainian energy infrastructure. Ukrenergo said Thursday that supply was back up to 73 percent following the latest bombardment, though every day Ukrainian air raids herald the possibility of renewed attacks and demonstrate the need for a better anti-aircraft umbrella.

Western partners are providing the new air defense systems so long needed in Ukraine, with systems including the U.S.-made NASAMS and German-made Gepard already proving their effectiveness against Russian arms.

More are needed, though the amount partner nations can realistically provide is limited by their own defensive needs and the slow pace of procurement and production.

Merezhko said the focus is "absolutely" still on comprehensive air defense. "Some countries, for different reasons, cannot provide weapons, but are more eager to provide humanitarian aid, including generators, to avoid humanitarian catastrophe in Kyiv and other cities." Merezhko said.

Kukhta concurred. "If Ukraine is quickly stuffed now with enough anti-air defenses to make the strategic bombing campaign inefficient, this is the most efficient and best way for everyone—foremostly for the Western voters and taxpayers—to stop this Russian bombing campaign from doing damage," he said.