“We have the feeling of being useful”, confide electricians who repair the infrastructures bombed by the Russians

The huge crane truck progresses, meticulously, around this crater, planted in the middle of one of the electricity production sites bombarded by the Russian army: two meters deep, probably three in diameter. Russian forces are indeed continuing their massive strikes against Ukrainian infrastructure, raising fears of a collapse of the energy network. Also, last Monday, at 8 o’clock in the morning, a missile fell in the middle of the pylons, in this important electrical substation in the kyiv region.

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Orange helmet on his head, Oleksandr remakes the film, still a little stunned. “This morning, he said, only the guard was present on site. The blast knocked me to the ground, but I wasn’t hurt.” Nothing remains, on the other hand, of this concrete block, disintegrated, nor of the reinforcements, completely exposed. Nor cables, severed. Result: 300,000 inhabitants of the region were deprived of electricity.

Oleksandr sighs: “It’s quite hopeless, there’s enough to be lost! What else can we do, faced with this Russian neighbor, who is attacking us…?” But there was no time to give up: his company, Dtek, which is the leading private producer and supplier of electricity in Ukraine, made its teams work 24 hours a day, the first days

“On the site in the middle of the night, locals came to bring us food, offered us tea, to encourage us; it was really touching!”

Part of the current could be reconnected quickly… but there is still so much to do. So, Oleksandr and his teams continue the effort: and are still working, long after nightfall, on this large outdoor site.

“We feel really useful when we allow people to regain electricity…“, he smiles. But how much longer will Ukraine be able to cope with the strikes of the Russian army? The boss of Dtek, Maksym Timchenko evokes a real risk of shortage of destroyed equipment: transformers, circuit breakers , electrical insulators, cables… And he calls on Europe for this: “May our allies, he said, urgently provide us with this material!” It is an energy war, which has begun. And she is not ready to stop.