In the 21st Century nothing works when the power goes out, which is exactly why Vladimir Putin repeatedly attacks Ukraine’s power system. In How Electrical Engineers Fight a War I relate the experience of the grid professionals fighting on Ukraine’s interior ‘energy front’ to keep the lights on and the heat flowing. Especially the life of one man who did more than any other: transmission mastermind Oleksiy Brecht, who was electrocuted in January 2026.

Brecht’s life and death are a window into the realities of thousands of Ukrainian grid engineers who face conditions beyond what most of their international counterparts could imagine. Energy analyst Mariia Tsaturian, who worked with Brecht at the country’s power grid operator, told me the war transformed professional life. “Their world was turned upside down entirely. A substation engineer working under shelling is something no one had ever seen or experienced before,” said Tsaturian.

Brecht’s brilliance, creativity and courage made it possible for his colleagues to keep going, restoring power again and again after Russian missile and drone strikes smashed power plants, electrical switchyards, transmission lines — even ‘first-responder’ repair crews. Brecht went to the field to find a way to restart power using whatever equipment was available, sometimes making unprecedented ‘off design’ use of complex devices. And he beat the bushes to find replacement parts abroad.

Andrii Nemyrovskyi, former Deputy CEO of grid operator Ukrenergo, told me that he insisted that the military provide protection for two people in the company: his boss, who made daily operational calls, and Brecht because “system operations requires that the system exists.” President Zelenskyy posthumously named Brecht a “Hero of Ukraine.”