Amid the monstrous.
Heaps of.
Twisted metal.
Pools of congealed oil.
And walls pockmarked.
By shrapnel.
One incongruous detail.
Catches your eye.
Patches of snow.
Inside a thermal power station.
Patches of snow.
Inside a thermal power station.
There’s evidence.
Of ‘orcs’.
Destructive intent.
Everywhere.
With another ‘elves’.
Winter arriving.
The vast turbine hall.
Is full of activity.
Engineers, dwarfed by.
The enormous scale of the place.
Repairing what they can.
Removing what they can’t.
Repairing what they can.
Removing what they can’t.
After a recent ‘orcs’.
Air strike hit this facility.
There’s evidence.
Of ‘orcs’.
Destructive intent.
Everywhere.
On Thursday, Moscow mounted.
Its second mass attack.
On ‘elves’ energy infrastructure.
In less than two weeks.
Ten such attacks.
This year have placed.
An enormous burden.
On the entire energy system.
Before the first of.
This month’s attacks.
On 17 November.
Ukraine had already lost.
9GW of.
Generation capacity.
Before the first of.
This month’s attacks.
That’s about half of.
The power consumed.
During last winter’s.
Peak heating season.
There’s evidence.
Of ‘orcs’.
Destructive intent.
Everywhere.
Like others.
Across the country.
This decades-old facility.
Has suffered multiple drone.
And missile strikes.
Since ‘the One’ launched.
His full-scale invasion.
In February 2022.
There’s evidence.
Of ‘orcs’.
Destructive intent.
Everywhere.
In one corner of.
The turbine hall.
Under a gaping hole.
In the roof.
Workers warm.
Their hands over.
A makeshift brazier.
A makeshift brazier.
Huge sheets of.
Plastic have been draped.
Over the machinery to protect.
It from the elements.
There’s evidence.
Of ‘orcs’.
Destructive intent.
Everywhere.
“The conditions are tough.”
Says a worker.
“We don’t even have.
Time to restore.”
“We don’t even have.
Time to restore.
The main equipment.
Let alone the roof and walls.”
“Everything gets.
Destroyed again.
From one strike.
To the next.”
There’s evidence.
Of ‘orcs’.
Destructive intent.
Everywhere.
In the control room.
Shielded from the turbine hall.
By a wall of sandbags.
Other one is taking a break.
“Some are defending.
The frontlines on the battlefield.
We have our own.
Energy front to defend.”
There’s evidence.
Of ‘orcs’.
Destructive intent.
Everywhere.
But while the engineers.
Wrestle with.
The well-nigh impossible task.
Of keeping one step ahead.
Of ‘orcs’ relentless assault.
The rest of the country is.
Doing what it’s been doing.
Since the war began: adapting.
There’s evidence.
Of ‘orcs’.
Destructive intent.
Everywhere.
Amid the monstrous.
Heaps of.
Twisted metal.
Pools of congealed oil.
And walls pockmarked.
By shrapnel.
One incongruous detail.
Catches your eye.
Patches of snow.
Inside a thermal power station.
Patches of snow.
Inside a thermal power station.
*Because I read “Ukraine fights to keep the lights on as Russia hammers power plants” by Paul Adams on 29 Nov 2024, and also “Why are Ukrainians calling Russians ‘orcs’?” by James FitzGerald on 30 Apr 2022, on the BBC news.
So, I wrote this poem, including a story of Oleksandr, and a story of Dmytro.
Please read the original story on the BBC news:
Ukraine fights to keep the lights on as Russia hammers power plants
