On Kyiv’s bustling main shopping avenues, the roar of diesel generators is a symbol of how Ukrainians are adapting to war.
(Bloomberg) — On Kyiv’s bustling main shopping avenues, the roar of diesel generators is a symbol of how Ukrainians are adapting to war.
After months of blackouts caused by Russian attacks against the country’s energy infrastructure, everyone from mom-and-pop companies to international retailers are keeping the lights on with machines chugging away on sidewalks and cables snaking indoors.
Inside, businesses keep Ukrainians who have no power at home warm and online with tables for students to work on laptops, power banks for charging devices, and space heaters to fight off the winter chill.
While shoppers had to trudge up and down dormant escalators and use their mobile phones flashlights to read labels when the attacks started, half of food retail chains are operating normally, and that could rise to 70% by end-February, according to Andrii Zhuk, the chairman of the Retail Association of Ukraine.
“Now most stores can help the population — people can keep warm, charge their phones,” Zhuk said at a briefing on Wednesday.
Since Russian President Vladimir Putin sent tanks across the border on Feb. 24 last year, his war has killed tens of thousands of Ukrainians and driven millions from their homes. The wave of attacks against the power grid — aimed at crushing Ukraine’s fighting spirit — has often left millions of people without heat, power and water for days at a time.
Ukraine imported more than half a million generators in 2022, Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said. That’s evident on Kyiv’s main avenue, Khreshchatyk, near the site of Ukraine’s Maidan revolution that toppled a pro-Russian government in 2013.
Nearly every shop has a diesel generator running outside, with the added benefit of some supermarkets being underground that can also serve as shelter from Russian attacks. Nearby, one retailer has opened an ice-rink that hosts birthday parties for kids.
“The stores and shopping centers perform a great social function,” Zhuk said. “Now these are our points of invincibility.”
–With assistance from Daryna Krasnolutska.
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