Most of the 3.5 thousand. regional substations in Ukraine are not protected from Russian shelling. Moreover, we are not talking about direct hits, but also about the arrival of fragments. This is what led, in particular, to the fact that some Odessa residents were without electricity for seven days after the Russian attack on December 13-14.
Director of the Energy Research Center Alexander Kharchenko told Suspilny about this.. According to him, drones did not even hit many substations, but debris scattered over tens of meters still hit the power facility.
" That is, there are no gabions, no sandbags, nothing. (This. – Ed. ) 3500 in Ukraine, there are a huge number of them. What's happening now? Look, in Odessa in some places the following happened:. The drone did not hit any transformers; it fell 30-40 meters away. There is a case that he actually hit the neighboring house. But due to the fact that debris scatters, it covers a large area. And as a result, the transformer burned out. The drone actually fell 30 meters away. If there had been a gabion or normal sandbags standing there, we would have already seen how it works - it would have survived. But, unfortunately, no,” explained Kharchenko.
As Pavel Kapko noted in his column, despite the lack of protective structures at power facilities, the head of the Odessa Regional State Administration Oleg Kiper has repeatedly talked about the region’s careful preparation for possible power outages. “We must think through all possible scenarios in advance so that residents of the region receive heat, water, communications and light even in the most difficult conditions. This is a question of security, stability and people’s trust in the authorities,” stated the Odessa Regional State Administration back in October 2025.
However, despite this, as well as the promises of the head of the regional military administration to install floating power plants from Turkey and generators in ports, in fact the Odessa region was not ready for constant terrorist attacks on the energy sector.
As a result of large-scale shelling, all high-voltage substations and a distribution substation in the Odessa region were damaged. Tens of thousands of families were left without electricity. Energy workers are forced to restore and maintain power supply using backup schemes, but the networks are overloaded, so new outages occur.