Yves here. It is odd how little attention Russia’s campaign against Ukraine’s electric grid is getting, given that it is the sort of blow that the West and Ukraine can’t stop or even blunt. The kinetic war is getting vastly more attention, presumably because it is much more familiar and also consuming lots of funds, weapons, and men. Helmer points out below that the Washington Post has quoted Ukraine sources saying at least 86% of Ukraine’s generating capacity has been destroyed.
It is beneficial to Russia that far more attention is going to the traditional battlefield. This means that the officials who have been focusing on the line of contact, still in their minds, will be at a very embarrassing loss when Ukraine starts collapsing. Russia is controlling when that happens, but the 86% figure and the limited alternatives (discussed below) says that things are pretty close to becoming catastrophic. It will be interesting to see if US and NATO leaders try outrage or mumble shuffle, since they do not appear to have prepared the media at all for this outcome.
We have pointed out that Russia controls Ukraine’s future by virtue of Ukraine’s entire system running on old Soviet standards, and Russia, not the US or NATO states, makes that grade of gear. Please do not suggest the West could step in and supply Ukraine’s needs. Private companies will not build factories for what for them would be a big run of special purpose equipment. We are having enough difficulty scaling up to produce more of not terribly high tech items where we have an ongoing need, like 155 mm shells.
By John Helmer, the longest continuously serving foreign correspondent in Russia, and the only western journalist to direct his own bureau independent of single national or commercial ties. Helmer has also been a professor of political science, and an advisor to government heads in Greece, the United States, and Asia. He is the first and only member of a US presidential administration (Jimmy Carter) to establish himself in Russia. Originally published at Dances with Bears
As the Ukraine’s peak summer electricity season approaches, the list of the Russian General Staff’s Electric War targets is shrinking. This is because almost all the Ukrainian electricity generating plants have been stopped. What remains for destruction are the connecting lines and distribution grids for the Ukraine’s imported electricity from Poland and other European Union neighbours. The microwave and cell telephone towers, and the diesel fuel stocks which are powering the back-up generating sets are next.
“There’s no keeping the Ukrainian cell network up any more than there is keeping up the electrical grid,” comments a close military observer. “The General Staff have set the flow of Ukrainian refugees west as inversely proportional to the flow of data and electrons over Ukrainian airwaves and transmission lines. We can expect that relationship to be set to highly inverse before the summer is out. What calculations have been made regarding things further west are just beginning to become evident.”
The Electric War is now accelerating faster to the Polish border than the Russian army advance along the line east of the Dnieper River.
In the very long history of siege warfare, there has never been a case of letting the enemy’s civilian population run safely away from his castles and cities until the fortifications and army which remain must choose between surrender and destruction.
Read the story file on the Electric War since October 2022 here.
The geographic spread, the explosive yield, and the cost of each of the raids are accelerating. On June 1, the Russian military bloggers, which continue to be the semi-official source of battlefield news each day, reported that energy facilities had been attacked in five regions of the Ukraine – in the east in Zaporozhye and Dniepropetrovsk; in the west in Kirovograd and Ivano-Frankovsk regions. Two thermal power plants were seriously damaged, following a salvo which the Ukrainians counted at 53 missiles and 47 drones.
The next day, June 2, the Russian sources, quoting Ukrainian electricity company bulletins to consumers, reported emergency blackouts and restricted power supply schedules were in effect in Kiev and its surrounding region. On June 5, the situation in Kiev was worse, according to DTEK, the dominant privately owned utility, and Ukrenergo, the state operator of the country’s high-voltage transmission lines.
On June 6-7, The Washington Post – editorial motto, “Democracy Dies in Darkness” – reported Ukrainian utility managers and state officials as confirming that at least 86% of the country’s electricity generating capacity has now been destroyed. “We are catastrophically short of electricity for our needs,” the newspaper quoted Sergei Kovalenko, chief executive of the Ukrainian private electricity distributor YASNO, ….The power cuts have divided Kiev into the haves and the have-nots — with even residents at some privileged, high-end addresses suddenly finding themselves in the latter category.” “DTEK has lost some 86 percent of its generating capacity, [DTEK chief executive Maxim] Timchenko said. What makes the situation worse is that many of the electrical facilities have been targeted repeatedly — a cycle of destruction, recovery, destruction, he said.” “Next week will be better,” Ukrenergo spokesperson Mariia Tsaturian said. “The week after that could be worse.” “The scheduled outages will continue — the only question is how severe they will be, Ukrenergo CEO Volodymyr Kudrytskyi said.” “We are talking about a huge loss of generation,” said Yury Kubrushko, founder of Imepower, a Ukrainian energy consultancy. “I can hardly see from where Ukraine can get new extra capacity just this winter.”
Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/
To advertise its desperation for more foreign money and equipment replacements, DTEK has republished the Washington Post story.
Boris Rozhin, editor-in-chief of the Colonel Cassad military blog in Moscow, has reported that in the east, the Krivoy Rog power station is still working, despite several earlier hits. He said “additional strikes are called for.”
Source: https://t.me/s/boris_rozhin
On June 7, a video recorded stroll down one of Odessa’s shopping streets revealed an emergency generating set providing electricity for almost all of the commercial establishments.
“This is in no way sustainable,” comments a NATO military engineer. “Note how each shop has its own genset. The generators in the video are not designed for the duty cycle they’re being run at. They’ll wear out soon enough. The military, including deployed NATO personnel, use the shops and the gensets, too. The idea of pooling their resources, sharing load among gensets, thus reducing wear and tear on the whole network, while collectivizing fuel and maintenance costs, doesn’t seem to have occurred to them. To be sure, what follows will be no lack of electrocutions, carbon monoxide poisonings, and fires. We can bet the manifestations of the social pathology we’re seeing here have been factored in by the General Staff. Their attack point will now be to stop fuel, engine oil, spares, and replacements from getting through. ”
Independently of one another, Russian and Ukrainian reporters are confirming the impact of the power losses on the operation of water and sewerage systems in the majority of Ukrainian cities. According to Oleg Popenko, a Ukrainian expert on energy for communal services, “Armageddon has already arrived. We just don’t feel it yet. But the residents of Poltava, for example, feel it, because since May 5 of this year, 120,000 residents of the city receive water by the hour and use sewerage by the hour. You can imagine what happened in Zhitomir when the central sewerage collector didn’t work there for a week, but now in Poltava [it’s been] a month. And this is the problem with water utilities in 70% of Ukrainian cities. Water utilities are probably more important than rest of the infrastructure in the city. Heat and electricity can be replaced somehow, and you can go somewhere. But if the sewer system breaks down in a city, the city is no longer viable in principle.”
The NATO military engineer has compiled his forecast list of Russian targets in the coming days. “We should expect the commercial fuel storage and distribution network to be hit. These are legitimate military targets as the Ukrainian military relies on them to support its war effort. The railways should be hit as well. There’s no good military reason to allow them to keep functioning. Given the NATO country endorsements for striking Russian territory targets, I don’t see the rationale on the Moscow side for leaving unscathed the rail network connecting Lvov and Kiev to Rzeszów [Poland].”
“The target list should include the border switchyards and substations connecting the Ukraine to the European transmission lines. Destroying those and targeting the stations transmitting power from nuclear sources will finish the job. There will be no more load balancing after that. The collapse of Ukrainian logistics, not to mention the society, will follow soon after. If the switchyards connecting the nuclear power plants to the grid are smashed, it’s the end for the Ukrainians.”
NOTE: Lead images -- left, blackout warning on June 4 from DTEK. Centre: pedestrian walking dog in central Kiev, June 6. Shops on Odessa city street powered by emergency generating sets, June 8.
45 comments
Comments are closed.
The Kremlin should announce:
“Free 100% Russian financed rebuilding of new modern electric and water infrastructure and access to voluntary Russian military enlistment at current generous pay rates with full benefits, to every Ukraine Oblast that votes or chooses to join the Russian Federation.” In addition to usual Russian funding of pensions, schools, infrastructure, and social programs.
Or potentially die fighting us to preserve what is left of your so called Western democracy.
They are announcing by doing it, in Mariupol.
https://www.youtube.com/@VideosfromMariupol/videos
It looks like Mariupol might be a great place for Ukrainian’s who are looking to avoid conscription.
Wow! Thanks for the link. I can tell you, these plans are visionary. Using 3-D CAD to create/imagine the future of Mariupol is state-of-the-art. They are incorporating many modern design concepts in both the residential housing and public spaces.
Turning a bombed-out Azovstal steel plant into a green, livable place that accentuates the adjacent water body for recreation/tourism is brilliant. Lots of exciting new urban opportunity for a growing Russian population.
The West has failed to comprehend Russian motivation and innovation. I’m sure China sees opportunity in assisting in this transformation.
Guess sending em them new, eco-friendly, plugin tanks now seems moot. /s
Don’t forget a carbon capture program (to fund among other things 10% for the Big Guy) and lots of EV vehicles (I gather you don’t need infrastructure to support EV’s just tax credits…the rest will follow), to be managed by Western HR professionals that support transgender affirmative action programs. I believe Sam Brinton is available to HR manage this. But it might be a good idea to not put airport luggage terminals under his jurisdiction.
Of course there will be hydrogen projects too – circular construction…I know that a few Finnish firms have opened business in Kiev regarding Ukrainian reconstruction (with circular methods).
“EV vehicles” Are they like PIN numbers and ATM machines?
As Mecouris has pointed out more than once, the U.S. and NATO critters and spooks should start thinking of getting out of Kiev before they can’t. Once those rail lines get hit, it’s not going to be pretty.
If they get captured, I would hope that they face war crimes charges. Perhaps Russia and China can set up an international criminal court in Mariupol to try those guilty of the crime of aggression.
I don’t understand why Putin didn’t destroy the entire infrastructure of Ukraine during the winter. Did he really not want the Ukrainians to freeze in the cold?
No, he didn’t. He said so this Spring at a press conference, that it was a “humanitarian” decision to wait until winter was over before attacking the grid again. His approach since the beginning of the SMO has been to stick to the objectives of securing the Donbass, demilitarize, and denazify, not genocide and savage destruction, like, ahem, what’s going on in Gaza. The world sees this. And, no doubt, he’s looking to the future, when he wants a stabilized and somewhat peaceful country on his border, whatever it will be called at that time.
Intentionally making people freeze in the cold sounds more like USA/Israeli thing.
No, the Russians do not seem to want that, something that even the readers of NYT have grasped. Here is a top readers pick of letters to the editor with emphasis added:
Sean T
NYC
May 24
Underestimating your enemy is something the Russians did on their initial assault, and it is something that the Western coalition has done since that initial Ukrainian success, getting high on their own supply of “primitive Russians with no GDP fighting with shovels and stealing washing machines for chips”, meanwhile the Russians are hugely out producing the entire western world in most weapons systems, seem to have EW capability above that of even the USA, and strike targets anywhere in Ukraine at will, held up only by lingering Sovok feelings of commonality with Ukraine (America went after urban water treatment plants etc right away in Iraq, something Russia can do but has not done to this day). The outcome of this war is clear, in the sense that it does not involve a Ukrainian victory according to Ukraine’s own stated aims. Better to negotiate a peace at current lines of control while it is still probably available
5 Replies27 Recommend”
The vanishing Ukrainian electric infrastructure renders the plans for establishing western-financed arms factories in Ukraine particularly ridiculous. It will be amusing to watch the contortions of the mainstream U.S. media as they strive to depict the plucky Ukrainians as unconquerable heroes.
This is such a curious war. I would have thought that Russia should have attacked the energy infrastructure much sooner along with the railroads particularly connecting to Poland. I suspect that the, at best, Putin wanted to keep Ukraine somewhat functional so rump Ukraine would have some agency and resilience to make it less dependent on NATO to develop after the war. Since NATO is forcing the Russians to move towards a total war (thus bad PR) footing which will help Washington rally the people who live in NATOstan to support high military expenditures out of fear of Russia (look at the poor Ukrainians suffering we’re next) which seems to be the current project.
At rate, the fact Russia is spending more resources on destroying infrastructure means that Moscow is getting tired of the war and would like to end it this year or next or force Washington to send troops to Ukraine which would put the proverbial ball in Washington’s court.
“Washington rally the people who live in NATOstan to support high military expenditures out of fear of Russia (look at the poor Ukrainians suffering we’re next) which seems to be the current project.”
It’s not working. There is no groundswell of support among voters for war with Russia. Macron lives in a little elite bubble in Paris that wants conflict, but nobody else does, and he just found that out. I don’t see the German public marching to the recruitment centers. Britain doesn’t even have an army to speak of. Maybe in Poland, but, last survey I saw of the public was exactly enthusiastic for war, and considering what they’ve been watching on their border, I’ll bet they, yeah, don’t want to provoke their own destruction. And then watch Washington walk away in the middle of it.
Russia needed to exhaust Ukraine (and US/NATO-supplied) air defenses first. That has been painstaking, with Russia for instance hunting down various launch platforms, as well as attritional. Western leaders were warning that Ukraine would be pretty much out of air defense missiles at the end of March. They might have extended it a bit with wringing additional supplies out of Ukraine. Now that there’s very little Ukraine can do, Russia has a much freer hand about how they go about doing things.
I was surprised to read about Ukraine AD. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Ukraine inherited massive amounts of military equipment including 1000s (yes 1000s) of AD missile launchers of S200, S300, Tor, Buk, etc. Because they are geographically smaller than Russia, despite having slightly less AD equipment, it was the most dense AD environment in the world. Think about that. Russia could not use aircraft much on battlefield for first year of war while doing intense SEAD. As Yves states, they are pretty much done. Patriots are immobile crap only good at shooting down aircraft as are most western systems. They have no real anti-missile capacity now.
And many of those AD missiles were wasted by trying to shoot down cheap drones.
East vs. West style of assymmetric combat. East is much smarter. Use 15-30k drones and force us to use low production 500k-4M missiles, etc. Puts into focus the difference between nationalized military focused on effectiveness and winning conflicts vs private industrial focused on profit.
I think Putin originally wanted to go in and take over Ukraine politically while causing the least amount of damage to key infrastructure as possible. I think the original plan was to just roll in guns ablaze into Kiev, round up the Zelensky government, and either install a more Russian friendly puppet or directly control the country. It became clear very early on that this quite simply wasn’t going to happen. When it also became clear that the Ukrainian government and its Western backers had no interest in cutting a peace deal to stop the war in the early months after the initial failure, then slowly Russia started moving towards a straight up war of attrition, which is where we are today.
This entire conflict has been based on false premises and mistaken assumptions for everyone involved, but the biggest self-deception for the collective West is they desperately want to deny that at the end of the day they don’t care about Ukraine. They might care about throwing dirt in the eyes of Russia, but as for the plight of Ukraine itself they care very little. They certainly don’t care enough to seriously risk world war, potentially thermonuclear war over it. We all know, and so does Putin. Eventually, the West will just throw in the towel and say enough, it isn’t worth us to support this war anymore.
Until then, it seems we’re all just going to have to sit around and wait. A deal should have been cut a long time ago. Honestly, I think everyone involved would have been better off doing their best to adhere to Minsk II and avoiding war altogether, but that’s not the way it went down.
No, it wasn’t.
The did not sent enough troops to capture Kiev. They could not send enough troops to capture Kiev without declaring war. They did not sent the right equipment to capture Kiev, this due to the need to cross the Dniepro (all important government buildings are on the west side of the river). They could not airdrop the troops required to capture the bridges required to cross intact due to Kiev having one of the most heavily defended airspaces in Europe.
Going after Kiev was a feint. And it worked it allowed Russia to get into the southeastern provinces despite the Ukraine having 50k troops on the edges (they took the place with relatively few losses and ‘only’ 80kish soldier where standard doctrine advocates 150k troops and losing 10% to 20%, it did help that the Ukrainian army was not fully in the provinces). It worked too well since Russia got overconfident and almost lost everything due to over extension.
Further in the early stages Ukraine was willing to negotiate a peace treaty. One that, compared to what they’ll have to agree to now, relatively good for them with just no NATO and a limit on army size.
The problem being that every action that Russia took was interpreted as “Russia is weak and will collapse any moment now.” in Washington (and Great Britain), the joys of motivated reasoning.
So Russia has slowly been escalating and providing examples (see the hits on the Ukrainian electricity net last year) in an attempt to get Ukraine to the negotiating table.
Europe maybe but as the last 10 years have shown if US says jump Europe will be in the air asking if they are allowed to come down.
US, not likely. Washington is in straight up denial that they can’t force their will upon Russia to the point that they have lost so much soft power (and their hard power looking more like a mirage) that US is losing the capacity to force others except (what are essentially) their vassal nations to do their bidding. The only reason that the war in Ukraine ends is because Ukraine and Russia work something out despite interference by US.
I agree 100% that Russia went in way too light to take Kiev. This was not an aim, it was a pinning operation.
I differ a bit on your take re motives. Putin still wanted his Minsk deal. This was to show the West that Russia was not going to take any more NATO threatening to let Ukraine in nonsense, along with neverending shelling of civilians in Donbass. Russia wanted to drive Ukraine to the negotiating table and did in very short order.
The overextension was the result of Plan A, the negotiations, being scuppered, and Russia dithering about what to do next.
Small geogrphical correction, Chernobyl and Gostomel (and Bucha) are on the west side of the Dniepr.
Whether it’s clever and optimized, or wasteful and ad hoc, or some combination of those, Russia’s approach here is not the Western way of war. It’s confused no end of Western observers–which includes non-expert commenters like me–but also experts like Scott Ritter, Douglas Macgregor, etc.
The power war seems to be part of a rather cautious and gradual escalation cycle on Russia’s part since Feb of 22. Russia keeps taking bites, and then waits to see if the enemy asks for negotiations or for more punishment.
Russia could have gone after infrastructure much more aggressively, much earlier. It failed to do so. Not because of a lack of capability IMO, but by choice. I don’t see that Ukraine has or ever had much anti-missile capability. Planes, helicopters, and the occasional Geran: yes, missiles: not much.
Shutting down the power altogether will provoke quite a humanitarian crisis. The current power strikes are the latest in a long series of warnings. The warnings go unheeded and the escalation continues.
> quite a humanitarian crisis
This is foreseeable and presumably foreseen by both RF and NATO. I would not place money on NATO making preparations now to deal with this crisis, but would not be surprised if RF does as part of plans for administration of occupied/liberated territory in the event of UAF collapse.
One little quibble: I asked a friend, a highly skilled and highly placed worker at the ABB-Stotz factory (electrical equipment) in Heidelberg, Germany, whether the factory could theoretically resupply Ukraine. After all the grid is quite different. He laughed. Of course he said. After all we are supplying huge amounts of circuit breakers to Russia. Russia?????? Formerly he said we were supplying thru Hungary. Now though we supply directly. It´s all humanitarian-:) He mused whether it was connected to the fact that ABB is a Swiss conglomerate. On the ability of ABB to rebuild the Ukrainian grid from Germany he was very definate. Another matter though is electricity generation et al. No chance for all the turbines a.s.o. that are needed.
Factory of the future: ABB’s intelligent factory in Heidelberg
German engineering. Ignore the ‘internet of things’ remark, it’s the ‘6000 product variants’ that’s interesting. But I’m biased, we’ve set up multiple sites with dozens of 3D printers of various types. Adaptable.
That said, ABB-Stolz makes circuit breakers. The problem is that electrical generation is what is being wrecked. No generation, no circuit. You’re exactly right to note that.
Breakers and transformers are very different creatures. Breakers are relatively simple compared to transformers; the components look pretty much the same for voltage and current pattern A .vs. voltage and current pattern B.
The mfg’g setup to create those different voltage transformers means different winding patterns, size of coils, number of windings per coil, points of entry and exit (“taps”) ) and a different transformer container size.
That’s quite a bit of different. To justify the mfg’g setup to build these transformers at scale (make a lot of them) is a major investment, and takes time.
Can anyone report on the status of the mfg’g capacity required to achieve this?
Next: the transformers are big, and they weigh a lot. They would have to move, rather slowly, through the rail system to the closest junction point, then even more slowly over the roadway to the power plant or distribution point on the grid.
Then they have to be installed. All this takes a great deal of time – measured in weeks, likely – and then … one more strike, and it’s all for nought. It would be obvious to the Russians, days or weeks before the new gear becomes operational, that it is, indeed a great target to hit on the next salvo.
Is the West willing to pay for all that, knowing it likely won’t make a difference?
Can more knowledgeable readers confirm or amend those remarks?
My first thought at reading the 86% figure was since a huge proportion of its grid needs to be rebuilt, at what point, if at all, would it make sense for Ukraine to rebuild it using western standards. Then I remembered seeing this a while back:
“The United States is currently experiencing unprecedented imbalance between supply and demand for transformers….”
You are certainly more knowledgeable that I am on this but IMO you are absolutely right. Possibly, in short, we can blame it to electromagnetic compatibility issues between different types of equipments.
Before you manufacture, you need materials.
The US imports almost all GOES ( grain oriented electrical steel ) used in transformer cores.DOE is considering new standards for requiring amorphous steel cores for the last couple of years.
Most US large transformers are imported. Apparently subsidies are coming to build new facilities.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/transformer-shortage_n_64645004e4b0005c6055c541
As best I can tell surprise, China is the #1 producer of GOES and amorphous metals. It seems like the us companies import a lot of the refined material and make things here.
Another case of no one understanding the sequence of parts/raw/materials/manufacturing/engineers needed to increase rhe size of our grid.
I’ve seen Joe Biden say solar panels are a national security concern. No actually. But transformers are
As to Ukraine, it would be China that would best be able to ramp up production, but guessing not in this case.
At every place I have ever worked there was a dedicated “prime power” group of engineers that did nothing but handle all power above 600 VAC. Typically we as engineers would handle 480 VAC 3 phase and below, and work with a facilities engineer (responsible for building utilities) to ensure we got the power we needed to our equipment, and even the facilities engineering group worked with the prime power group to ensure site power to the buildings was properly done.
The prime power folks, and the engineering of the larger power grids are a specialty that’s quite removed from 20 amp breakers in power panels. There is very little “off-the-shelf” equipment available. Everything is large, expensive, and has very long lead times. There are a couple of people that comment here that work in that world. I use to know some guys that worked for the BPA, but that was years ago. It’d be interesting to know what they think.
Circuit breakers are typically at the end of the line on the consumer’s end. They’re a relatively small item.
Generation, transmission and distribution are something else. In principle, ABB probably has proprietary designs for everything Ukraine’s lost. It does not have that amount of surplus inventory sitting around in storage. Nor does it have the capacity to manufacture it in the short term, ie, before the winter. That’s out of the question.
I was recently working on an industrial project for Shell. A large generator meant for the project was destroyed en route in a truck accident. Wait time for a replacement? Six months.
On the same project, we would be at pains to find electrical parts that were common stock before covid; we had to comb North America for what we needed, frequently getting them brought in by air freight at a premium. And this on a modest construction project.
ABB does not have a nation’s worth of inventory sitting around in their warehouses. We are talking about a mountain of components, some very sophisticated, and all expensive. Plus you need thousands of personnel to do the installs. Their field division does not have the numbers for a project of this scope. Finding that many qualified people would be an epic undertaking, even if every single Ukrainian electrician was sitting around waiting for the call.
Plus there can’t be a war happening while you do this.
I think there may be some military subtleties that Russia takes into account when meting out destruction. Train lines from Rzeszów, are very helpful for ferrying western munitions into range of Russian artillery, for example.
Keeping cell service limping along may encourage foreign ‘mercenaries’ to use their own SIM cards, and thereby summon precisely located destruction. Rationed power could make prioritized consumers more visible.
I am not so sure whether the refugee flood works better at a slower pace, but I suspect the cycle of rebuilding and destruction and inevitable decline may be more grinding on morale than a ‘Shock and Awe’ style flash decivilization (As Seen On TV).
The west use to mock North Korea by publishing satellite images of that country at night showing how most of it was dark and not lit by electricity. Unmentioned was the fact that it was sanctions that was making it so. Will it be a matter of time until images emerge showing the Ukraine at night to reveal that most of that country is dark as well? A strange omission that.
Except for the discos in Kiev.
Pretty sure one of these instances was just a badly timed photo.
https://en.paperblog.com/the-north-korea-is-dark-at-night-lie-1243799/amp
No use in repairing the grid when Russia can just take it out again.
It would be interesting to know who has the corner on the small generator market.
Copper transformers.
https://copper.org/environment/sustainable-energy/transformers/case-studies/transformer_manufacturer_a6100.php
As Yves indicated, replacing the electric grid equipment is a non-starter. Russia is the sole source, at this time. As for sewer systems, I’ve mentioned this critical essential service for years on NC, as a looming catastrophe for coastal cities. Sea level rise is going to complicate normal operation of the sanitary sewer system in my city. Even the wealthy estates in the hills, far from the ocean, will become useless abodes. (The power consumption of our central sewer system is enormous—65% of all municipal power (street lighting, signal lights, City buildings, etc.)
Cholera is a killer.
One way to predict the end of the Ukraine war may be to calculate the service life of small electric generators running continuously. Based on some figures I’ve seen online, they will last about 5 months, and this assumes a steady supply of fuel and lubricants.
It depends on the brand. Those little 2200 watt Hondas will go for thousands of hours if you change the oil regularly.