Restart the machines after each power cut, protect installations that have barely been repaired before a new attack or the onset of severe cold. Start over every day. Ukrainian technicians are doing Sisyphean work to counter the Russian-led infrastructure war.
In Kramatorsk, an industrial city in eastern Ukraine, three companies operate to maintain and repair an already dilapidated energy network, now damaged by Russian strikes.
“We are fixing. And if they destroy, we will still repair. It’s our job,” says Oleksandre, an employee of the municipal company, shrugging his shoulders, welding a pipe.
A few meters away, an excavator – the only one available to the municipality, forced to rent a second one from a private company – digs a trench.
Outdated system
The municipal company employs 40 technicians (double before the Russian invasion) and manages the network for half of the buildings in Kramatorsk, which had more than 150,000 inhabitants before the Moscow offensive.
In a trench surrounded by warning tapes, two large pipes ensuring the heating of dozens of buildings are waiting to be covered. Damaged by a strike at the end of September, they were quickly repaired, but the company has not yet had time to rebury them underground.
“Normally, this would have been done a long time ago. But we lack time and equipment, we have to take care of both repairs and maintenance” of an outdated system, sighs the technical manager of the company, Rinat Milouchov.
Located in the Donetsk region, partly occupied by Russian forces and the scene of heavy fighting, Kramatorsk has breathed a little better since a Ukrainian counter-offensive which allowed the resumption of localities in September and October. But fierce fighting is still taking place in the area, especially in Bakhmout, about fifty km to the southeast.
And like the whole country, the city suffers from power cuts following systematic strikes by Russian forces against Ukrainian energy infrastructure. Launched in October, this targeted campaign assumed by Russian President Vladimir Putin deprives millions of Ukrainians of water, electricity and heating every day.
In Kramatorsk today, daytime temperatures are around -2°C, but at the height of winter the thermometer can drop to -15°C or even -20°C.
“The workers work day and night to guarantee heating for the population, but each time the electricity is cut off, they have to start over,” explains Mr. Milouchov.
Praised as “heroes” in the country since the beginning of the invasion for their tireless and often dangerous work, his men are only paid between 150 and 200 euros a month, or between $215 and $290 Canadian (the average salary in Ukraine is around CA$505).
“You have to manually restart the system each time there is a power cut, i.e. several times a day”, points out the director, underlining the stress induced for his staff.
” To get used to “
Not to mention the damage caused to the network by these successive and impossible to plan restarts.
“I have been working for 20 years, I have seen complicated situations, but what we are currently experiencing is without comparison”, recognizes the manager. Before adding, after a brief silence: “We have to get used to this new rhythm”.
To get used to. The word comes back like a leitmotif. “You can get used to all the disasters, manage water or electricity cuts… But above all not the bombings! exclaims Yulia, behind the counter of her grocery store without power.
“If the situation does not worsen, we will go through the winter,” says Anna Prokopenko, a septuagenarian all dressed in blue.
The same smiling phlegm with Isabella and Vassyl Maslyvets, a retired couple strolling under the winter sun.
“The last time we had no heating, it was 12°C in the house, it wasn’t a total disaster, we just put on more jackets”, says Isabella. “We are receiving humanitarian aid, our pensions have been paid, the shops are open, we have enough food. We have enough to face, ”adds Vassyl.
But Andriï Bessonny, deputy mayor of Kramatorsk, while praising the “extraordinary work” of his officials, remains worried. “The biggest problem ahead is the cold, and the risk of frozen pipes. Normally we prepare for the cold season months before, but that was impossible this summer because of the bombardments,” he says.