KYIV’S NIGHTTIME curfew has been in force through nearly four years of war, unchanged even on New Year’s Eve. But on January 16th authorities relaxed most of its provisions, allowing people to leave their homes to seek warmth. The decision was a response to a growing humanitarian threat in the capital. Russian air assaults are wrecking the damaged energy grid just as temperatures plunge to -20°C. An attack overnight on January 19th left 1m users without electricity, with several thousand homes cut off from the city’s central heating system. Emergency services are struggling to patch the grid. The capital seems a few steps away from a disaster.
A spokesman for DTEK, the local power company in Kyiv, says Russia is doing all it can to detach the capital from the national grid. “They have found a strategy that works in ultra-cold weather,” he laments. Recent bombardments have focused on civilian energy infrastructure, especially substations that convert the national grid’s high voltage to the local one’s lower voltage. Too few low-voltage lines into the city remain intact. Some of the capital’s own thermal power plants are still operating, but if they too were knocked offline the water system would follow. In a worst-case scenario, the city’s pipes would have to be drained until spring to stop them freezing and bursting. Vitaly Klitschko, the mayor, is encouraging anyone who can to leave. Some 600,000 already have.
Municipal planners face a scary combination: too little power, too few air-defence missiles, unusually low temperatures and increasingly accurate Russian bombardment. Shahed drones, now produced by the hundreds daily, are Russia’s main weapon. In a typical attack, a missile punches through a target’s roof and dozens of drones follow into the breach. Shortages of interceptor missiles for Western systems are a long-running headache. But an air-defence source says the sheer number of drones is now the main problem. Over the past year, Ukraine’s drone interception rate has fallen from 98% to 80%.
Following the January 19th attack, President Volodymyr Zelensky postponed a planned trip to the World Economic Forum in Davos and pledged to reform the country’s air-force command. The most striking change was the appointment of Colonel Pavlo “Lazar” Yelizarov, a front-line drone commander, as assistant air-defence commander. His leap from strike drones to strategic air defence raised some eyebrows. Yet Mr Yelizarov is renowned for guiding a secretive unit credited with destroying more than $12bn-worth of Russian equipment. His elevation suggests a new emphasis on domestically produced interceptors and a change in doctrine.
Speaking to The Economist before his switch, Mr Yelizarov said his battlefield philosophy drew from business systems he learned in his pre-war career as a media producer. Having volunteered for the army in 2022, he moved into drone warfare after converting a cigarette-smugglers’ drone into an improvised bomb. He went on to build a feared force of some 1,500 operators. “Lazar’s Group” now fields reconnaissance, night-bomber and interceptor drone units every 10km along the front line. Most of its soldiers operate remotely from swivel chairs in high-tech underground bunkers in Kyiv, and almost all are under 35.
The work is deadly quiet, broken by a cheer when an especially valuable target is hit. “My task has been to create the equivalent of McDonalds, a standardised system,” Mr Yelizarov says. “We are generally creative, the Russians are more systemic. Yet whenever the Russians hit another organised system, they stop.” Ukrainians must hope his system can stop Russian drones before Kyiv freezes.■
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