Utilities have rebuilt substations twice in two years. This time they are building them underground. Engineers in Kyiv are racing to finish hardened substations before the first hard frost, part of a program to bury or bunker the most critical nodes of the capital’s power grid after two winters of repeated strikes. The work is expensive and slow. A single hardened substation costs roughly four times its above-ground equivalent, and the concrete must cure before equipment can be installed. Officials say roughly a third of the planned sites will be ready by December. Residents have grown practiced at rolling blackouts, but hospitals and water utilities remain the chief concern. The city has doubled its stock of generators and fuel since last year.Kyiv braces for winter as strikes target the power grid
