Ukraine’s largest telecom operator Kyivstar said 30% of its network is affected by the current nationwide blackouts.
Oleksandr Komarov, CEO of Kyivstar, wrote on Thursday that for the 9th day in a row, 30% of the company’s network “is without power.”
Komarov added that the outage is distributed evenly across Ukraine, with most equipment operating on generators or batteries for the majority of the day.
“Today is a very hard day. One of the hardest from the summer of 2024. On the 9th morning, more than 30% of the network is without power, almost evenly throughout the country,” Komarov wrote on Facebook.
Russia’s campaign against Ukraine’s energy grid, focusing on power plants, hit its peak in the summer of 2024.
“Five regional technology centers on generators. In general, the network, in a very large part of the day, works on battery and generators. Unfortunately, about 4% of sites lost performance,” Komarov added.
Due to renewed Russian strikes on Ukraine’s energy grid ahead of winter, operators have warned that blackouts – which last for 12 hours or more daily for most users across Ukraine – are likely to persist throughout the winter.
Komarov also urged residents to secure backup power for their home internet, noting that Kyivstar has provided 12 hours of backup power for 99% of household connections via a Hr.300 million ($7 million) investment in batteries between 2024 and 2025.
This means that even if a building loses electricity, the internet itself will remain available for up to 12 hours – provided residents can power their routers inside the apartment.
Komarov added that reliance on mobile internet during blackouts would exacerbate the situation, as energy for mobile towers depletes faster during high workloads.
He said most users lack a backup power source for their routers, with one of the lowest percentages recorded in central Ukraine’s Poltava region.
“As of mid-November, only 15-20% of home internet subscribers took care of backup power for routers. During the recent complete blackout in the Poltava region, the customer reserve was at the level of only 2%,” he wrote.