Kyiv will put its first mini combined heat and power (CHP) plants with built-in protection against Russian shelling into operation by the end of 2025, deputy head of the Kyiv City State Administration Petro Panteleiev said, as the capital enters its fourth winter under large-scale attack on Ukraine’s energy grid.

The new gas-engine units are designed to keep critical heating and power infrastructure alive during blackouts, giving Kyiv a backup source of electricity when giant Soviet-era plants are hit or disconnected from the national grid.

This shift towards smaller, hardened power plants signals how Ukraine’s capital is trying to survive Russia’s long energy war: by breaking up vulnerable mega-facilities into a web of protected nodes that can keep hospitals, water pumps, and district heating running even when the main grid is burning.

What Kyiv is building and why it matters

In his interview with Hromadske, Panteleiev said the city is installing seven gas-piston cogeneration units, six of which are planned to go online by the end of the year.

These mini-CHP plants will:

• Generate over 20 megawatts each—enough to power roughly a third of a city district
• Feed electricity first to large boiler houses so central heating can keep working when the grid fails
• Distribute remaining power to nearby residential buildings and critical infrastructure
• Operate inside purpose-built concrete shelters to withstand near-misses and shrapnel from missile and drone strikes

Panteleiev stressed that these facilities are not just oversized generators: they are full-fledged small power stations designed from the start with fortifications. He noted that each site is being engineered individually, with local grid ties and protection built in from day one, and described the concept as one of the first attempts worldwide to pair distributed CHP with systematic physical shielding against high-intensity missile attacks.

Why giant Soviet-era plants cannot be fully protected

While Kyiv has completed the first level of protection around major energy facilities—gabion walls, earthworks, and other basic structures—the deputy mayor was blunt about the limits of concrete.

Talking about the capital’s two large CHP plants, he said it is “unrealistic to hide a CHP plant in concrete,” pointing out that each facility covers around 100 hectares—the size of an entire residential neighborhood. Even if the city encased some critical elements, nearby components would remain exposed; a successful hit on them could still disable the plant.

The city has poured more than 2.7 billion hryvnias (around $64 million) into second-level protection measures and distributed cogeneration projects, financed from the municipal budget and its own utility company, rather than the state budget. The broader mini-CHP program, including equipment, installation, and shelters, is expected to cost about 10.5 billion hryvnias (around $250 million), with some hardware supplied through international aid programs such as UNDP.

Surviving blackouts: priorities, not miracles

Kyiv’s new mini-CHP network is being built for a specific tactical reality: Russia has destroyed more than half of Ukraine’s pre-war generating capacity and repeatedly forces the country into rolling blackouts with mass drone and missile strikes on power plants and gas infrastructure.

Panteleiev said the city has an emergency “resilience program” for full blackouts, focusing first on:

• Hospitals and maternity wards
• Geriatric and social care centers
• Key water and heating facilities

Kyiv has prepared roughly 300 generators of various capacities and 55 mobile boiler units, a number expected to rise to 70 by year-end, to plug the worst gaps when grid power disappears. But he warned that there is no scenario in which backup systems keep the entire city fully powered: Kyiv normally consumes around 1.3 GW of electricity, and creating a parallel, fully underground energy system would require building something like 15 buried power plants—“from the realm of science fiction in wartime,” he argued.

Instead, the goal is to make sure that even during long outages, citizens can still access heat, water, and basic services while repair crews race to reconnect the main grid. Recent analysis of Ukraine’s energy crisis has shown that where transformers were placed inside robust concrete shelters, most survived repeated Russian strikes—a lesson now being applied to Kyiv’s smaller plants and substations.

A test bed for Ukraine’s wider energy defense

Kyiv’s experiment with mini-CHP plants comes as national authorities roll out a program to fortify 100 critical energy and infrastructure sites across Ukraine by the end of 2025, combining physical barriers, rapid-repair teams, and new operating procedures to keep power flowing under fire.

If Kyiv’s sheltered gas-engine (mini-CHP) plants can reliably keep district heating and water systems running through Russia’s next waves of strikes, they may become a model for other cities seeking to decentralize away from a handful of massive, easily targetable Soviet-era sites.

The corruption scandal in Ukraine continues to unfold. The Ukrainian opposition is demanding the resignation of the government, which allegedly allowed the embezzlement of $100 million from Energoatom, the only enterprise servicing the country’s nuclear power plants. According to the investigation, officials clearly failed to properly build protective shelters over energy facilities amid Russian attacks, UkrInform reports. 

Europe assessed the investigation positively, stating that it demonstrated the functioning of anti-corruption institutions. At the same time, those responsible must be held accountable. Ministers are implicated in the scheme, and businessman Tymur Mindich, a close associate of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, is named as the organizer.

Corruption scandal escalates into demands for government resignation

On 18 November, the parliamentary faction European Solidarity, led by former Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko, blocked the rostrum in the Ukrainian Parliament to prevent a vote on the dismissal of Energy Minister Svitlana Hrynchuk and Justice Minister Herman Halushchenko. The faction insists on the dismissal of the entire government instead.

Poroshenko has stated that trust in the authorities has collapsed. He has stated the need to dismiss the current Cabinet of Ministers and form a “government of national unity.”

It would unite representatives of various political forces, both from the ruling party and the opposition, to work together on ensuring the country’s survival and defense during the war, when society is especially sensitive to military and hybrid threats from Russia.

Previously, in 2024, Ukraine appointed Oleksii Chernyshov as Minister of National Unity. However, it has emerged that Chernyshov is also implicated in the “Mindichgate” case as one of the key figures. According to investigators, he allegedly received kickbacks from service suppliers with a 10–15% markup. In total, transfers of $1.2 million and nearly €100,000 were recorded.

51 deputies have already signed a no-confidence motion against the government

According to Poroshenko, 51 lawmakers have already signed a motion of no confidence in the current government. There are about 400 MPs in the Ukrainian Parliament.

“We will not allow a vote on these two ministers today. We state responsibly: we will not vote for an attempt to ‘release steam’ and preserve the corruption vertical,” Poroshenko said.

He urged colleagues to sign for the government’s dismissal.

After this, deputies began chanting: “Government out!”

Speaker of the Ukrainian Parliament Ruslan Stefanchuk then announced a recess in the plenary session. According to the deputies, the Ukrainian Parliament's work for the day was over.

€140 billion of frozen Russian assets at stake 

Meanwhile, Ukraine is counting on the possibility of utilizing €140 billion of frozen Russian assets for a reparations loan to Ukraine, held in Europe. Such aid could be a unique opportunity for the state, especially since the US has ceased military aid following Donald Trump's election.

However, legal challenges in using these assets are compounded by concerns over how the money might be utilized amid the backdrop of the corruption scandal.

The scandal in Ukraine erupted after the release of the latest European Commission report on the EU candidate countries, presented last week. It provides a clear assessment that Ukraine has made limited progress in the fight against corruption.

Three unidentified drones flew over Belgium’s Doel nuclear power plant in the evening of 9 November, according to Reuters, citing energy company Engie. Later, Politico reported, also referring to Engie, that a total of five drones were spotted flying over the nuclear power station that evening.

Doel plant latest in string of drone sightings

Reuters cited a spokesperson from Belgian energy firm Engie, who said the drones did not disrupt the Doel plant’s operations. Authorities were informed immediately. 

"Initially we had detected three drones, but then we saw five drones. They were up in the air for about an hour," Engie spokesperson Hellen Smeets told Politico on 10 November, adding that the first report of the three drones came around 10 p.m. yesterday.

Politico reports that earlier in the evening, Liège Airport briefly suspended air traffic after several drone sightings, halting flights around 7:30 p.m. before resuming operations less than an hour later.

Government links drone threats to Russia

On 5 November, Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever called an emergency meeting of the National Security Council in response to the rising number of drone intrusions. Belgian intelligence agencies blame Russia for the incidents, according to Suspilne. As a result, authorities decided to bolster the National Air Security Center (NASC) and review anti-drone measures.