EditPower by appointment only: Europe’s most civilised blackout
The Energy Ministry calls it resilience. Regular Ukrainians call it survival. Western partners prefer the term load management.
Four years into the war, Ukrainians have turned blackout recovery into a national art form: denial, collapse, restoration, everyone’s small victory, writes Sed Tkachuk.
Volodymyr (Sed) Tkachuk is a communications specialist and free-lance journalist, signing Sed Tkachuk. His other columns can be found here.
Kyiv, 10 October 2025. The city sank into silence after the largest energy strike since the start of the war. The deathly hum of Russian drones and missiles replaced the life-saving hum of petrol generators; the fourth autumn of blackouts began.
Every year since 2022 had brought scheduled outages, “energy-saving timetables,” and life by generator. Ukrainians once marked time by the clock; now they measure it in voltage. This year was supposed to be different. Officials swore Kyiv was ready. Again.
“The system is stable,” the Ukrainian Energy Ministry promised minutes before half the capital went dark. Both electricity and water systems collapsed — no lights, no metro, no pumps. Hot water vanished first, then cold. Kyiv, the city of endurance, was once again plunged into the medieval.
At 4:00 a.m., the left bank of Dnipro river went dark. The metro stopped mid-tunnel. Water pumps went silent. At 1:00 p.m., 2,939 infrastructure sites and 4,474 residential buildings still had no power; 136 social institutions remained without heating.
By 5:00 p.m., 270,000 households were reconnected. Later, 423,000. Only at 12:30 a.m., 11 October, did the last neighbourhoods flicker back to life.
Central districts — Pecherskyi, Holosiivskyi, Solomianskyi, Shevchenkivskyi — with country’s main offices, headquarters, and millions of residents, were without cold and hot water for hours. Even Parliament relied on trucked-in supplies.
“We learned to shower by schedule, eat by candlelight, and charge our phones at the pharmacy,” a Kyiv resident joked grimly. “It’s just life now.”
Four years into the war, Ukrainians have turned blackout recovery into a national art form: denial, collapse, restoration, everyone’s small victory.
In 2022, hourly electricity schedules appeared — temporary, they said. They lasted two years. By 2023, they were tradition; by 2024, routine. This year, officials insisted no such schedules would return. But no one believed them. Rolling blackouts are no longer a risk — they’re a season.
The electrical infrastructure has been haphazardly fixed with Western help — imported transformers, patched substations, temporary grids that became permanent. Fragile victories, duct-taped into existence.
Meanwhile, gas infrastructure has been under attack for almost two months straight. Pipelines, compressor stations, storage — all hit, all “repaired.” The war has become a slow dismantling of temperature and electricity itself.
Today, Ukraine has secured only 40% of its usual winter gas supply. Of nearly 650 gas compressor stations, more than 590 have been damaged to varying degrees.
“You don’t realise how political light is until you lose it.”
Kyiv once again rehearses resilience as if it were strategy. Electricity has become a matter of etiquette. Power on at 7, heat at 9, Wi-Fi by luck.
The Energy Ministry calls it resilience. Regular Ukrainians call it survival. Western partners prefer the term load management. Electricity by appointment, democracy by extension cord.
It’s the politest apocalypse in Europe. Efficiency has become the art of pretending deprivation is by design.
Prices for portable power stations jumped 8,000 hryvnias (200$) overnight — the new luxury class of survival. Working-class Ukrainians stand in lines to charge their devices while influencers livestream from EcoFlows, sipping instant coffee charged by lithium. “Energy resilience” has become a brand, not a policy.
Every September, Kyiv holds the same press briefing: “The system is ready.” Every October proves it isn’t.
The West, too, has its ritual: promises that help is coming, that solidarity has no price tag — though delivery fees seem to apply.
The irony peaks as Kyiv reportedly lobbies to nominate Donald Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize — the same man who once froze weapons shipments and questioned whether Ukraine should even exist.
Meanwhile, Putin announced, “We will soon unveil a new weapon,” adding that Zelensky’s threats to strike the Kremlin were nothing more than “blackmail and bravado.”
The blackout ends, but dependence keeps glowing faintly with every lightbulb. The city is reconnected — but not restored.
Russia’s new strategy isn’t destruction. It’s exhaustion. The goal is to make Ukraine live in constant anticipation — to fear the switch, not only the bomb. Each blackout becomes a negotiation. Energy has become diplomacy by other means — where every kilowatt withheld is leverage, every restored light a temporary ceasefire.
Moscow seeks to trigger a new wave of migration from Ukraine and to stir discontent in Eastern Europe, creating additional costs for the European Union as a whole. This is another example of Russia’s direct involvement in Europe’s election campaigns.
Ukraine repairs; Europe deliberates; Russia watches. The frontline now runs through substations and transformers — invisible, silent, electric.
Families cook by candlelight again; children study by battery-powered lamps. In kitchens, people whisper the same line that has outlasted four winters: “We used to say, ‘turn off the lights when you leave the room.’ Now we say, ‘enjoy it while it’s on.’”
By 12:30 a.m., power returned. The illusion flickered back into being. Kyiv exhaled — mistaking relief for recovery.
Every blackout redraws the moral frontier: between endurance and amnesia. Between survival and pretending it’s progress.
Europe’s most civilised blackout is over — until the next one.
Caption: Cars drive along a dark street during power cuts following Russian strikes in Kyiv, Ukraine, 10 October 2025, amid the ongoing Russian invasion. According to the Ministry of Energy of Ukraine, Russian missile and drone attacks on energy facilities left a significant number of consumers without power in several Ukrainian cities. EPA/SERGEY DOLZHENKO
Updated: October 11, 2025 - 15:47
