In autumn 2024, Russia launched massive airstrikes on Ukraine, damaging its energy system and raising fears about the safety of its nuclear power plants. Many reactors were disconnected from the grid. One stopped completely.
“It wasn’t that we were scared,” Shawn Burney said, remembering that night. “It was like we were terrified.”
For Bernie, a veteran Greenpeace nuclear expert who has worked in some of the most radioactive places on Earth, the danger lies in the events that follow.
Nuclear plants depend on a continuous external power supply to run the cooling systems for the reactor core and spent fuel. When the grid goes down and plants get disconnected, they switch to diesel generators. In the worst case, if they cannot reconnect, the cooling system fails and the reactors overheat.
Ukraine knows what this means. On April 26, 1986, a reactor at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant exploded, forcing the evacuation of thousands of people from the area and polluting much of Europe.
“Chernobyl is part of our collective memory. Everyone has family or community stories about it,” said Lena Kondratiuk, 25, from Rivne, western Ukraine. “And now, during the war, that meaning has become even more real.”
a system under pressure
Although Ukraine still relies on nuclear power for more than half its electricity and plans to build more reactors, the worst has not happened. But the threat still remains as Russia continues to target energy infrastructure.
More than half of Ukraine’s power generation capacity has been damaged or destroyed. The United Nations nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, described the situation as “The world’s biggest threat to nuclear security”
Because large, centralized plants – nuclear, coal or gas – that generate huge amounts of power in a single location are such easy targets, decentralization is an attractive idea.
And it also means more renewable energy, which is harder to target, cheaper to fix and faster to deploy.
Chris Aylett, an energy expert at Chatham House, a British think tank, said that while one missile could knock out a 250-megawatt coal plant, 40 would be needed to destroy the same capacity in wind generation. Solar parks are also more sustainable.
“If there’s any damage to it, you don’t necessarily have to remove everything — you can replace with new panels,” Aylett said.
These benefits are motivating Ukrainian energy companies and NGOs to pursue renewable energy. Rooftop solar now covers hospitals, schools and public buildings. In 2025, enough electricity was installed in the country to power more than one million homes even during a fire.
Keeping the lights on with renewable energy
Kondratiuk is part of that effort. She joined the NGO Ecoclub as a volunteer at the age of 18, before landing a job as a renewable energy analyst in 2020. After Russia launches its full-scale invasion in 2022, the organization shifted from advocacy work and launched. Solar Aid for Ukraine CampaignBecause power cuts have become a part of daily life.
At the age of 21, he started managing projects. At first, she was afraid of this responsibility but agreed to it “because of the war, because I understand that, for example, I could die tomorrow”.
Like many Ukrainians, she has learned to adapt. His work now takes him across the country, including as far south as Mykolaiv, some 60 kilometers (37 mi) from the front line. On his first visit to the city, he was shelled and run on diesel generators.
“I didn’t want to come back to the city because I’m scared,” she said.
Now Kondratiuk makes the 13-hour trip once a month, while Russia targets passenger trains. He likes it there because of the people. “They teach that even during war, it is possible to find moments of happiness in your life and carry on.”
Renewable energy as a form of existence
Despite the risks, Kondratiuk has helped bring about 90 solar systems online. In places like Mykolaiv, these systems are much more than green energy; They are a lifeline.
Kondratiuk said, “Renewable energy in Ukraine is not about climate and sustainability; it is now about survival.” “It’s about access to basic needs.”
These solar and battery systems keep water utilities running during blackouts. They also enable hospitals to operate and children to charge their phones during power outages so they can stay in touch with their parents.
On one project he worked on solar panels installed in a care home for women with mental health and neurological conditions. Before the installation, staff would wake up at 4 a.m. to prepare meals before power cuts, but patients were often left without hot meals.
“And after that, they were happy because they had access to everything,” she said.
lessons learned from ukraine
The priority for Ukrainians is keeping the power flowing. Nuclear is essential to that, and without it, experts say Ukraine would be in much worse shape, given how much fossil fuel capacity has been destroyed during the war. The country still needs baseload power.
Chris Aylett looks at what other European countries can learn from Ukraine’s experience in operating an energy grid under constant attack.
“They’ve gone through this terrible experience, they’re continuing to go through it, they’ve shown an amazing kind of ingenuity in rebuilding quickly, and it’s told us a lot about what is unsafe and what you need to consider,” he said.
The key lesson is the geographic spread of infrastructure – and this applies regardless of energy source. Diversifying the mix with more renewable energy and storage is another. As does stockpiling the right components that will keep the system running – and standardizing them, so that restoration takes weeks rather than months.
Ayelet said the war and the conflict in the Strait of Hormuz made the case for “fossil-fuel-starved” Europe to “tackle climate change by reducing greenhouse gas emissions” as well as rapid decarbonization and renewables.
On the future of nuclear, he is pragmatic and says that in countries like France, where it is a major energy source, he sees no reason to stop it. “Ultimately, you want to be as low-carbon as possible, and make it as safe as possible while doing it.”
Kondratiuk said she’s glad she was born long after the Chernobyl accident — even though she’s living through a different kind of disaster in Ukraine, one she doesn’t expect to end any time soon. But she is still waiting for the time when the war will end.
“I still want to help my country, still want to continue my work at the Ecoclub, and I still think that even after the war and even after our victory, there will be even more work than now because we have to rebuild the country and rebuild it greener and better,” she said.
Edited by: Tamsin Walker
This story was taken from an episode of DW’s Living Planet podcast. Listen to the episode here.