Seconds later the lights go out, the ovens are turned off and darkness covers the room. Kutsenko, 31, went out into the freezing night, switched on a large rectangular generator and the the electricity came back on. It’s a pattern that will be repeated time and time again as businesses struggle to continue operating through power outages caused by Russia’s bombing campaign in in Ukraine energy grid.

“It is more than impossible to imagine a Ukrainian business operating without a generator,” said Olha Hrynchuk, the co-founder and head baker of Spelta.

The cost of purchasing and operating generators to combat power outages is just one of the many challenges facing Ukrainian businesses after approx. four years of war. Severe labor shortages due to war-related mobilization and migration, security risks, declining purchasing power and complex logistics add to the pressure, officials said.

Hrynchuk, 28, opened the bakery 10 months after Russia launched its full-scale invasion in 2022. That winter was the first year Russiafocused on the energy system of Ukraine. Hrynchuk said they barely know what it’s like to work under “normal” conditions, but have never faced the challenges they do now.

Production is entirely dependent on electricity and the generator burns about 700 hryvnias ($16) worth of fuel per hour.

“We run a generator for 10 to 12 hours a day. You don’t have a fixed schedule – you have to adjust and refuel it at the same time,” said Hrynchuk.

‘Operating a loss’

Olha Nasonova, 52, who is the head of Restaurants of the Ukraine analytical center, says that the industry is experiencing its most difficult time in the last 20 years.

While businesses are prepared for power cuts, no one expects such a one cold winter and it is especially difficult for small cafés and family-run establishments, because they have the least financial resources.

The “Best Way to Cup” project, which has two locations and roasts and grinds its own coffee, is on the verge of permanent closure. Co-founder Yana Bilym, 33, who opened the cafe in May, said a Russian attack shattered all the windows and glass doors in August. Bilym said the cost of the renovation was 150,000 hryvnias (about $3,400), half of which he financed with a bank loan he had just finished paying off.

Last month, after a series of large-scale Russian attacks on the energy sector, his entire building lost its water supply, and shortly after the sewage system stopped working.

“We are forced to close. We believe it is temporary. Businesses in December and January, unfortunately, operate at a loss,” said Bilym.

Now he has to constantly check the coffee machine and the special refrigerators, which he fears will not withstand the cold. Bilym hopes the closure will be quick. Her husband volunteered to serve in the military on the front lines and she wanted him to have a place to return to when he returned to civilian life.

Generators are expensive to run

Many businesses have become the lifeline of communities struggling with falling temperatures. The Ukrainian government has allowed some companies to operate during energy emergency curfew hours as “Points of Invincibility,” allowing access to free electricity to charge phones and power banks, drink tea and take a break from the cold.

Tetiana Abramova, 61, is a founder of Rito Group, a clothing company that has been producing designer knitwear for men and women since 1991, the year Ukraine became independent.

It participates in Ukraine Fashion Week, the country’s largest fashion show, and exports clothes to the United States. Abramova took out a loan in 2022 to buy a powerful 35-kilowatt generator worth 500,000 hryvnias ($11,500) to keep the business running during blackouts and a wood-fired boiler for heating.

“At work we have heat, we have water, we have light – and we have each other,” he said.

But it is not easy. Operating generators is 15%–20% more expensive than using regular electricity. As a result, production costs are now about 15% higher than normal. In addition to that, customer numbers have decreased by about 40% because many people have left the country, so the focus is now on attracting new clients through online sales.

“Profit fell by almost 50%, partly due to power outages“he said. “It affects the quantity and efficiency of our work. We can’t function like we used to. “

‘The main purpose is to survive’

A macroeconomic forecast of Kyiv The School of Economics for the first quarter of 2026 says that strikes in the energy system are currently the worst short-term risk to the country’s GDP. The analysis says if the business is able to adapt, the output losses will be limited to around 1% or 2% of GDP. But if the failure of the energy system goes on for a long time it can lead to much bigger losses, up to 2% or 3% of GDP.

Abramova, a businessman with more than 30 years of experience, said she spent nearly 100,000 hryvnias ($2,300) in two months servicing the generator to keep production running. But he can’t pass all the costs on to retailers.

“For us now, the main goal is not to be the most efficient, but to survive,” said Abramova.