In the rubble of bombarded Ukrainian cities, technicians are risking their lives to keep the country online. Their government calls them the ‘hidden heroes’ of the war.
, in Ukraine’s northeast, Russian missiles hit a key hub of Kyivstar, the biggest internet and mobile operator in the country, with 20 million customers in a country of 41 million. It was one of Russia’s more precise strikes, and it cut off the city’s phone service. Okhtyrka, a town of nearly 50,000 before the war, had already suffered attacks on a power plant and residential buildings. Now many townspeople couldn’t do something they’d long taken for granted: make a phone call.
“Thanks to the quick actions of our staff, we managed to restore the work of 11 Kyivstar base stations,” Lutchenko said. “Specialists successfully returned to Poltava, alive, unharmed and satisfied with their result.”Lifecell photos show extensive damage to some of its facilities across Ukrainian cities, such as Kharkiv and Okhtyrka.
In Kharkiv, a city bombarded since late February by Russian forces, telecom engineers do what they can to get the internet back online.Where Ukraine once had competing telecommunications companies whose profit motives fed a desire to take business from one another, they now not only share networks but staff too. In essence, there are no independent operators in wartime Ukraine.
They’re also motivated because, like many others in Ukraine, they feel a need to do their part for their country, said Kashyntsev, whose wife and daughter evacuated to Poland. “They’re trying to defend their cities ... with their network defense,” he said. Some can’t leave elderly parents or other family members in need of care, he added. Then there’s the simple explanation that networks allow families to stay in touch, that internet and phone connections often mean human connection.
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