No light, no communication, no sirens: how power outages endanger the safety of Ukrainians
7 June 2024 14:09
ЕКСКЛЮЗИВ
Prolonged power outages across Ukraine have severely hampered communication and the safety of residents. The lack of electricity means that people are left without communication and the internet, and mobile phone coverage is completely lost for several hours. As a result, residents do not receive air raid alerts. Many villages do not have sirens, which makes the situation even more critical. Thus, people cannot find out about the danger and, accordingly, cannot go to shelters in time. [ Kommersant asked experts about this problem with warnings and what people and authorities should do in this situation.
Kommersant’s Ukrainian 
readers reported that in a village located just 8 kilometres from Kyiv, a prolonged power outage from 18:00 yesterday until 7:00 today significantly hampered communication and security of the residents. The lack of light left people without communication and the Internet, and the mobile network disappeared completely within a few hours.
Energy expert Gennadiy Ryabtsev explained in a commentary to [komemtar ] that the absence of mobile communication means the absence of alerts, as alarms are transmitted via mobile networks.
“People have nothing to buy. If there is no connection, there is no alert, because alerts are sent via mobile. And there are services that provide this. But it turns out that mobile communication is a cellular phone, meaning that these are appropriate devices that are located either on rooftops or in an open field. And they have power, and if this power does not work, then the transmission does not work. And if the transmission does not work, it means that there are dead zones with weak or no mobile coverage,” he said,
– Ryabtsev said.
According to him, people can do nothing, they have no way to change anything in this regard because it is not up to them – the presence or absence of communication.
“We can buy a generator, we can buy a battery, a power bank, but we will not be able to provide ourselves with uninterrupted communication,”
– said the expert.
He also stressed that the issue of informing the public falls within the competence of the SES, which must ensure the proper operation of warning systems.
“In theory, the SES should provide information. They can be asked why. Because today, for example, I also didn’t hear any air raid alarms, even though I live in the centre of Kyiv. Everything here used to be buzzing like no other place in the city, like Poznyaki or Darnytsia. But last night I heard nothing. Therefore, the State Emergency Service should be asked – this is their parish, if they are not familiar with this problem, it should at least be voiced,” he added,
– he added.
Oleh Popenko, an expert on housing and communal services, stressed the importance of the role of local authorities and military administrations in solving this problem.
“For this purpose, we have relevant services, local governments, and military administrations. Therefore, when there are no alerts, people should first of all contact local authorities. As for alerts via mobile services and so on, operators have an obligation to resolve this issue. If their network goes down, then the right question is: how are you preparing at all?”
– he said.
Popenko also noted that in the third year of the full-scale war, Ukraine’s alarm notification system remains imperfect.
“As for me, everything stops at the level of ‘maybe we’ll miss it’. But as practice shows, we don’t. We are in the third year of the war, and the air alert notification system does not work in most of Ukraine. Nothing is being done. Everything is left on some kind of crooked model that barely works,”
– the expert said.
Popenko also stressed the need to develop alternative warning systems:
“Not everyone has money for starlinks, let’s be honest. The only way that people can monitor the beginning and end of the air raid is through an app on their mobile phones. So we need to develop a system that will alert people via SMS or some other means. The problem really exists, and it needs to be solved.”
The situation with prolonged power outages shows the need for a more efficient and reliable approach to informing the public about the danger. The absence of light should not endanger people’s lives due to lack of communication and inability to receive critical information.
