Pre-dawn breaks in the historic Podil district of Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the warm light from the Spelta bakery-bistro’s window penetrates the outside darkness. On a wooden surface sprinkled with flour, baker Oleksandr Kutsenko deftly divides and shapes soft, moist pieces of dough. As he pushes the first loaves into the oven, a sweet, delicate aroma of fresh bread fills the space.
Seconds later, the lights go out, the ovens switch off, and darkness engulfs the room. Kutsenko, 31, steps outside into the freezing night, turns on a large rectangular generator, and the . This is a pattern that will be repeated numerous times as the business struggles to keep operating through power outages caused by Russia’s bombing of the energy grid.
“It’s now utterly impossible to imagine a Ukrainian business functioning without a generator,” stated Olha Hrynchuk, co-founder and head baker of Spelta.
The cost of purchasing and running generators to overcome power outages is just one of many challenges Ukrainian businesses face after nearly . Officials note that acute labor shortages due to mobilization and war-related migration, security risks, declining purchasing power, and complex logistics add to the pressure.
Hrynchuk, 28, opened the bakery 10 months after Russia launched its full-scale invasion in 2022. That winter was the first year targeted Ukraine’s energy system. Hrynchuk says they scarcely know what it is like to work under “normal” conditions, but have never encountered the challenges they do now.
Production is entirely reliant on electricity, and the generator consumes about 700 hryvnias ($16) worth of fuel per hour.
“We run on a generator for 10 to 12 hours a day. There’s no fixed schedule—you have to adapt and refuel it at the same time,” Hrynchuk said.
‘Operate at a loss’
Olha Nasonova, 52, who heads the of Ukraine analytical center, says the industry is experiencing its most arduous period in the past 20 years.
While businesses were prepared for electricity cuts, no one anticipated such a and it has been particularly tough for small cafés and family-owned establishments, as they have the least financial resources.
The “Best Way to Cup” project, which has two venues and roasts and grinds its own coffee, is on the verge of permanent closure. Co-founder Yana Bilym, 33, who opened the café in May, said a Russian attack shattered all its windows and glass doors in August. Bilym said the cost of renovation was 150,000 hryvnias (about $3,400), half of which she financed with a bank loan she only recently paid off.
Last month, after several consecutive large-scale Russian attacks on the energy sector, her entire building lost its water supply, and soon after the sewer system stopped working.
“We were forced to close. We believe it’s temporary. Unfortunately, businesses in December and January operate at a loss,” Bilym said.
Now she has to regularly check the coffee machine and the specialty refrigerators, which she fears may not endure the cold. Bilym hopes the closure is short-term. Her husband volunteered to serve in the military on the front line, and she wants him to have a place to return to when he comes back to civilian life.
Generators are expensive to run
Many businesses have become a lifeline for communities grappling with plummeting temperatures. Ukraine’s government has allowed some firms to operate during curfew hours in the energy emergency as “Points of Invincibility,” enabling access to free electricity to charge phones and power banks, drink tea, and find some relief from the cold.
Tetiana Abramova, 61, is a founder of the Rito Group, a clothing company that has been producing designer knitwear for men and women since 1991, the year Ukraine gained independence.
It participates in Ukraine Fashion Week, the country’s biggest fashion show, and exports garments to the United States. Abramova took out a loan in 2022 to purchase a powerful 35-kilowatt generator costing 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,” she said.
But it’s not easy. Operating on generators is 15%–20% more costly than using regular electricity. As a result, production costs are currently about 15% higher than normal. Additionally, customer numbers have dropped by about 40% as many people have left the country, so the focus is now on attracting new clients through online sales.
“Profitability has dropped by around 50%, partly due to ,” she said. “This affects both the volume and efficiency of our work. We simply can’t operate as much as we used to.”
‘Main goal is to survive’
A macroeconomic forecast by the School of Economics for the first quarter of 2026 states that strikes on the energy system are currently the most acute short-term risk to the country’s GDP. The analysis says if businesses manage to adapt, output losses could be limited to around 1% or 2% of GDP. But if energy system failures persist, it could lead to larger losses, of up to 2% or 3% of GDP.
Abramova, an entrepreneur with more than 30 years of experience, says she spent nearly 100,000 hryvnias ($2,300) over two months on generator servicing to maintain production. But she can’t pass all those costs on to retailers.
“For us now, the main goal isn’t to be the most efficient, but to survive,” Abramova said.