In an article, covering Ukraine’s winter preparation, The Economist quoted DTEK Executive Director Dmytro Sakharuk discussing the multiple challenges faced in keeping the lights on.
“It is like being a hamster in a wheel,” Mr Sakharuk says of the continual attacks and frustration that, as soon as DTEK crews repair or replace equipment, the russians simply attack again.
It quotes Mr Sakharuk’s talking about the 5,000 of DTEK’s 60,000-strong workforce who now serve in the army. ‘So many have gone to fight that 250 women are now working underground in its coal mines’ the paper writes.
Mr Sakharuk also talks about a threat he believes will be even greater than missiles and drones this winter: cyber. A successful assault “can paralyse the whole system” and that can be “much more dangerous than physical damage”, he says.
The article – subtitled ‘Things may be tougher this time’ concludes: ‘Ever since the invasion began DTEK and Ukraine’s cyber warriors have been battling russia’s hackers; and this, he says, is “a game of cat and mouse”. Once you develop a new way to protect yourself the hackers find a new way around your defences. “You are always in motion,” he says.
