Kyiv residents pool together for solar panels and batteries amid Russian strikes

Russian missile and drone barrages have pushed Kyiv into its most serious energy crisis of the war. Read more at straitstimes.com.

KYIV – When Russian strikes cut off the power, heating and water to swathes of the Ukrainian capital in minus 20 deg C temperatures, Mr Denys Biletsky was prepared.

Following a round of particularly intense Russian barrages two years earlier, Mr Biletsky had convinced his neighbours to chip in together to install solar panels and batteries on the roof of their high-rise apartment block.

As Ukraine accuses Russia of trying to freeze the population into submission with its most intense attacks on the energy network of the entire war, more and more people in Kyiv are fund-raising and pooling cash to buy alternative sources of shared electricity.

“Without backup power, our building simply wouldn’t be able to function,” Mr Biletsky, the 42-year-old head of his building’s home owners’ association, told AFP.

On the roof of the 25-storey block, overlooking a sea of residential towers stretching across the horizon, he dusted fresh snowfall off dozens of solar panels with a wooden brush.

The 400-odd residents pooled 700,000 hryvnias (S$20,500) to buy and install them with the batteries and other required equipment.