Critical energy generation equipment donated by Ukraine's partners has been left idle and unconnected to the grid for years, as Russian attacks cripple the country's energy system during its coldest winter in decades.
Russia has plunged Ukraine into a catastrophic energy crisis, damaging around 8.5 gigawatts of generation capacity since October 2025 through relentless attacks on power plants, leaving citizens freezing in unheated and dark homes.
To survive, Ukraine says it needs $1 billion wor
Non-technical, non-expert people often hugely underestimate how incredibly complex large systems are. You can’t just wheel up some generators to a bombed-out substation and plug in the local grid.
The same applies to systems of organisation. Cities don’t know how to run this, local governments don’t know shit about power systems, so someone will have to tell them what to do. But they have to find experts to advise them, and there aren’t an infinite number of those available.
So you’ve got a situation that is very complex, being run by an organisation out of its depth. It’s going to get fucked up no matter how well intentioned everyone is. And since they’re human, they’re not well intentioned.