Twelve workers recently busied themselves with chainsaws and axes in a dense forest park surrounded by apartment buildings and playgrounds. It was cutting down trees, chopping logs and chopping them into firewood for storage in hidden sheds around the largest city, Lviv. in western Ukraine.
Ironworkers at nearby blacksmiths work overtime to manufacture wood stoves that we store in strategic locations. Municipal depots make room for coal stockpiles.
Activities in Lviv are carried out in towns and cities throughout Ukraine. This is part of a nationwide effort to amass an emergency arsenal of fuel reserves and vital supplies as Russia tightens its grip on energy supplies across Europe.
As President Vladimir V. Putin cuts Ukraine’s natural gas supply to European allies, the Kyiv government destroys critical infrastructure that supplies Russia with heat, water and electricity to millions of homes, businesses and factories. accusing it of accelerating
“All cities are gearing up for a harsh winter,” said Lviv Mayor Andriy Sadovyi, after Russian rockets knocked out three substations in April, temporarily cutting power to the region. said Mr. “Russia has cut gas supplies to its neighbors and they are also trying to put pressure on us,” he said. “Our goal is to survive. We must be ready.”
The urgency escalated after Russia cut gas supplies to Europe again last week, with the European Union saying it would cut Russian gas imports to avoid being taken hostage. Russia cut off gas to Latvia on Saturday after announcing
As Ukraine purchases natural gas from its European neighbors, its access to energy is also threatened as supplies to Europe are restricted.
Ukrainians often say they want to beat Russia before the cold weather arrives in October. But the leadership is also wary of the possibility of a prolonged conflict. In that case, Russia will systematically strangle the ability of Ukrainians to maintain body temperature and increase pressure.
Hundreds of thousands of civilians in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine were ordered to evacuate last weekend after months of relentless Russian bombing destroyed the infrastructure needed to provide heat and electricity. .
Coverage of the Russian-Ukrainian War
“We understand that Russia may continue to target critical energy infrastructure before and during the winter,” Ukrainian Minister of Community and Territorial Development Oleksiy Chernyshov said in an interview. I was.
“They destroyed central heating stations in big cities and physical devastation is still happening nationwide,” he said. “We are working to repair the damage, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t more.”
Far from Ukraine’s southeastern front, the campaign will target forests and steel mills, gas depots and power plants as the government activates blueprints for mobilizing regions to gather fuel and shelter. , and even in the basement boiler room.
Hundreds of thousands of cubic meters of firewood have been cut down in forests across the country, Yuri Volokhovets, head of the Ukrainian Forest Service, said in a statement.
The government plans to install so-called mobile heating units in cities of up to 200,000 people cut off from heat and electricity by shelling, to help residents cope with blackouts while damaged infrastructure is repaired. increase.
Ukraine relies on a combination of natural gas and electricity generated by nuclear, hydroelectric and fossil fuel power plants.
After millions of people fled the country, economic activity slowed and demand fell, the civil war left Ukraine with a surplus of electricity. The war has accelerated years of efforts to disconnect Ukraine’s energy grid from Russia and Belarus and connect it directly to the European Union. last month, Ukraine starts exporting A small amount of electricity will be supplied to Romania in hopes of eventually supplying European companies hit by Russia’s natural gas cuts, which could be a valuable source of income.
But Ukrainian officials have stepped up their campaign to target Russia’s energy-supplying infrastructure, so it’s possible to power at home, especially during the upcoming winter, when temperatures can drop well below freezing. ability to do so is increasingly threatened.
Russian artillery fire hit thermal power plants and more than 200 gas-fired boiler plants used for central heating throughout the country. According to him, about 5,000 kilometers of gas pipelines and 3,800 gas distribution centers were damaged. analysis The Kennan Institute at the Woodrow Wilson International Center, a Russian-focused think tank.
Gas is particularly important for Ukraine as it is used to heat thousands of high-rise apartment buildings, schools, post offices and municipal buildings that rely on central heating systems.
State-owned oil and gas company Naftogaz Europe’s largest gas reserves It has 11 billion cubic meters of storage.Andriy Zakrevsky, president of the Ukrainian Oil and Gas Association, said on Monday that it was enough to meet the needs of pre-war Ukraine, but the level was about half what the government wants.
Moscow’s gas cuts have put Europe in a race to secure new sources of energy, but after the annexation of Crimea in 2014, it stopped direct imports from Russia and then to Ukraine, which imports gas from Europe. The pain is back. Russian pressure has pushed European gas futures prices to record levels, making imports more expensive at a time when the Kyiv government faces a financial crisis.
All of which hastily mobilized the country.
Swiatoslaw and Zoriana Bielinski recently stocked the cellar of their modest home in Lviv with wood. The couple had purchased dozens of batteries and some battery-operated lamps in case the lights went out, and were preparing to purchase a gas cylinder for cooking.
“We have to start thinking about this,” said Bielinski’s sister, Alicia Bielinska. “After all, we can live without light and gas, but we can’t if invaders take over.”
City planning officials have amassed a much larger stockpile of thousands of tons of wood and tons of coal in the last week alone. Lviv mayor Sadby said more supplies were due to arrive and he had ordered the thermostat to be turned down to 15 degrees Celsius (59 degrees Fahrenheit) when winter set in.
One day, Mr. Sadvi busily strolled through the courtyard of City Hall, greeting locals gathered for the now-regular demonstrations about how to turn off heating, turn off electricity, and prepare for worse. did. Two paramedics instructed residents on how to put on chemical protective suits in case of an attack.
Blacksmiths shifted part of their production to the production of tens of thousands of wood-burning stoves with the Ukrainian coat of arms. City halls in more than 200 cities are building stockpiles and tents that can accommodate up to 50 people each in case of abandoned multi-family buildings that don’t need gas for heating.
Tents can be quickly moved to areas without electricity or heating, providing emergency shelter and a stove to boil water and cook.
Lviv Secretary General Iryna Dzhuryk said: “But this is a totally abnormal situation. We are shocked at what we are facing and worried that we will have enough to keep people warm.”
Nearby, a recently built hut for storing firewood is camouflaged by locals. Additional timber from trees in the city and extensive forests in western Ukraine is expected to arrive in the coming weeks.
In a dense forest streaked with yellow sunlight, an hour’s drive north of Lviv, forestry workers have gathered enough firewood to supply the beleaguered country. I worked hard to make it. On a recent weekday, they felled a weathered oak grove and trucked it to the sawmill. At the sawmill, in a lumberyard half the size of a football field, freshly cut logs were piled one meter high.
According to Yury Kromyak, deputy director of the Lviv Regional Forestry Department, sales of firewood have doubled since a year ago, and prices have nearly tripled as the state’s stocks have increased.
Even forests are not protected from Russian attacks, he added. Ukrainian forces recently shot down a rocket fired from Belarus into a nearby oil storage facility. The tanks, which were empty, were not damaged, but the blast blew out all the windows in the wood storage warehouse and some of the sawmills.
“Russians will do anything to destroy us,” he said. “But no one has united us more than Putin.”
