Every morning, at about 1.30am, NASA’s Suomi and NOAA-20 satellites pass over Ukraine. Their cameras capture the pulse of the country – the twinkle of street lights, shop signs and kitchen windows. High-resolution imagery from the two satellites, shared with Sky News, shows just how weak that pulse has become.
On 10 October, Russia opened a new front in the war in Ukraine. A front not along any strip of land, air or sea, but in millions of homes across the country. The strikes that day targeted crucial elements of Ukraine’s electricity grid – a strategy which could leave millions without heat or light in the depths of winter, Sky News writes in a detailed multimedia story.
Every single gas and coal-fired power plant has been damaged, according to the country’s prime minister, along with 40% of high voltage grid facilities, Sky News adds. A fresh wave of attacks hit last Friday which left 60% of Kyiv’s residents without power that evening and more still without heat or water. “Despite all the efforts by energy companies and governments to bolster the resilience of the Ukrainian grid, it’s the resilience of the Ukrainian spirit that might be most important of all,” Sky News adds.
“We’ve started the countdown… we have only 108 days left until this winter is over. Then we get a gigantic step closer to victory,” says Antonina Antosha, a spokesperson for DTEK, Ukraine’s largest private energy firm.
