Kharkiv needs over US$10 billion for reconstruction; mayor explains how city deals with power issues

More than US$10 billion is needed to reconstruct everything that Russia has damaged in Kharkiv.

Source: Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov in an interview with liga.net

Details: Terekhov said that Kharkiv has several priorities in its budget, and one of them is recovery. Terekhov stressed that no city budget in the world can withstand the burden of US$10 billion, so the city is engaging international partners.

"Russia is lying when it says it only hits military targets. With each strike, we have more and more evidence that this is a real genocide," Terekhov stressed.

Regarding the destruction caused by Russia in the last ten days of March, Terekhov said that the Russians destroyed all transformer substations and damaged the local thermal power plant. There was a power outage in Kharkiv. 

"It is impossible to restore these facilities quickly. They are working, but not fully restored. Together with the power engineers, we managed to perform a miracle. The next evening, the power went back on in residential buildings. Unfortunately, there is not enough voltage. We had to end the heating season early to save money," he added.

The city introduced rolling power outage schedules and decided not to light the streets.

"I cannot promise that we will restore all the capacity within a specific timeframe," Terekhov stated.

Terekhov also said that this heating season the city was partially prepared for attacks on energy facilities.

"This heating season we have been working partly due to the fact that we have built modular boiler rooms in residential neighbourhoods. Despite the power outage in the city, 40,000 consumers did not even feel it because we had installed alternative heating in preparation for the winter. The boiler rooms were operating and switched to generators," he added.

In addition, differentiation of the heating network will be a priority in preparing for the new heating season to reduce the load on stationary large thermal power plants. 

There were also interruptions in the city's water supply, which is directly dependent on energy. Kharkiv residents were asked to stock up on water.

"We are considering several alternatives. One of them is drilling wells, for example. In times of war, differentiation is needed in all areas.

This is a good resolution of problems with water supply, heating and electricity. It's time to move away from large-scale centralisation as much as possible," Terekhov summed up.

Background:

• The day before, it was reported that there were no power outages in Kharkiv, for the first time since 22 March, when the city's energy infrastructure was heavily damaged by Russian attacks.
• As a result of the Russian attack on 22 March, Zmiivka thermal power plant, which is the largest power plant in Kharkiv Oblast and one of the largest in Ukraine, was destroyed.

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