Ukrainians quickly became the world experts in power restoration after deliberate sabotage and destruction of generation and transmission/distribution nodes. As Canada gears up to “electrify everything,” here is what we can learn from a nation under fire…

The average November daily high temperature in Kyiv Ukraine is 5°C. The average daily low is 0°C. The high is 20 Celsius degrees below “room temperature”; the low, 25 degrees.

These average daily Kyiv November outdoor highs/lows fall squarely in the range of what some world militaries refer to as “wet cold”—which occurs when temperatures are around the freezing point of water, which is 0°C. Some meteorologists sneer at the term. They point out, correctly, that the air’s capacity to hold water as vapour diminishes so significantly at minus temperatures that humidity is simply not a factor. Cold is cold.

But wet cold is a factor to all those who experience it. It’s actually easier to stay warm at −5°C if you’re dry to begin with than it is at say +2°C if you’re in physically damp conditions. This is because water has such a high heat capacity—it can hold much more heat than the air can. When water is right on your skin, your body heat migrates to the water. You lose heat to water much more readily than to air.

Those of us in cold western countries who don’t do outdoor sports after summer, who don’t go camping, and who aren’t homeless, don’t notice this critical little fact of physics. It’s cold and damp outside? Then go inside, where it’s heated, where the temperature is between 24°C and 26°C.

It’s all very straightforward, even trivial, when it’s cold and damp outside and you’re in a western country during peacetime. That’s not Kyiv Ukraine right now. That’s not anywhere in Ukraine. Ukraine has been under constant Russian bombardment since February 2022. In addition to residential apartment buildings, hospitals, and restaurants, Russia has targeted civilian energy infrastructure, particularly power and heat generation. Most of Ukraine’s roughly 42,000 MW of thermal electric power generation capacity, including nuclear has been hit or seized. Most of it is now incapacitated or otherwise unavailable.

That would be a serious problem even if the outdoor temperature were indoor shirt-sleeve temperature, i.e. 25°C. At 5°C, the capital city Kyiv’s average daily high for November, it’s literally life threatening. And it gets worse with each Celsius-degree decline.

https://euromaidanpress.com/2025/11/20/kyiv-protected-mini-heat-power-plants/