Europe must “wake up” and prepare for the possibility of a large-scale attack by Russia, the mayor of Lviv in western Ukraine has warned, as he said his city and country were bracing for the worst winter of their war with the Kremlin’s invasion force.
Andriy Sadovyi was running Lviv when it became a refuge for millions of Ukrainians at the start of the all-out war in February 2022, and has overseen its transformation into a hub for people involved in all aspects of the conflict, from building drones to treating the wounded and sharing lessons on how to survive modern warfare with city mayors and other officials from across Europe.
Unesco-listed Lviv is 900km from the front line but well within reach of Russia’s massive missile and drone arsenal: in early October it endured long blackouts after suffering its biggest air strike of the war, and a month earlier about 20 Russian drones crossed the nearby border into Poland – yet Sadovyi says European officials are still determined to hope for the best rather than prepare for the worst.
“It is very unfortunate that Europe is absolutely unprepared for a serious Russian attack. If it happened it would be a massive disaster,” he told The Irish Times in his office on the central square of the nearly 800-year-old city.
He says European officials briefly “woke up” to the threat after the drone incursion into Poland, which took place around the same time as mysterious drone activity near several major European airports and other sensitive facilities and a violation of Estonian airspace over the Gulf of Finland by three Russian fighter jets.
“Then they went back to sleep. They are expecting some miracle support from the United States or Nato.
“It’s all blah blah blah. Russia can launch thousands of drones at one time from land, air and sea. If they do that, I don’t think Europe is practically or psychologically capable of handling it.”
Sadovyi (57) says he was inundated with questions from Polish journalists after last month’s drone incursion, as Lviv’s near neighbours sought its expertise on bomb shelters, air defences and other wartime issues.
“I said, ‘Surely you understand the situation in Ukraine already? We are only 70km from the Polish border here.’ And they said, ‘No, no, we are Europeans and we have a completely different life and completely different problems.’ It’s just crazy.
“Britain understands the threat. But the rest are absolutely in dreamworld. The worst thing is that they cannot even imagine fighting taking place on their own soil. So in this way, they are blocking any chance they might have of preparing for it,” Sadovyi says. “We need to wake Europe up.”
As fears of a full-scale Russian invasion grew in 2021, Sadovyi’s administration consulted with Britain’s Emergency Planning College in York – now called the UK Resilience Academy – to prepare for any crisis.
The work helped Lviv cope as some five million Ukrainians transited the city in the first months of Europe’s biggest war since 1945, putting immense strain on everything from accommodation and transport to health and sanitation services.
Sadovyi expects the fourth full winter of the war to be the toughest yet, and many cities across Ukraine are already experiencing long and frequent power cuts as Russia launches nightly attacks on civilian energy infrastructure.
“We must survive. I have different options in my head, and each of my deputies and the heads of municipal companies knows we must be able survive for some time without electricity, heating and without lots of services that we have today,” he says.
“All the city’s medical facilities have central [municipal] heat supply and also their own heating furnaces. We bought lots of firewood and other solid fuel for them. We are preparing our hospitals for a very, very dark time.
“It’s the same for water, we have an alternative system to send power to the municipal water company. So if Russia destroys all our power stations, we will have water for our citizens.”
Sadovyi says about 90 per cent of the drones and rockets fired at Lviv on October 5th were intercepted – during a nationwide Russian attack involving about 500 drones and more than 50 missiles – but additional air defence systems are still his main request from western allies.
“If we blow up Russian missiles in the air then they will not destroy our critical infrastructure. So military support is the number one priority. I know the [air defence] situation today is better than one or two years ago, but Russia is also increasing its attacks … and its drone and missile potential.”
Like most of his compatriots, Sadovyi sees no sign that Russia wants to end the war.
“All Ukrainian people would like a peace agreement and ceasefire. But I don’t think it’s possible today – Russia wants to totally destroy our country and kill the Ukrainian people,” he says.
“Our recent attacks on Russian energy facilities – with Ukrainian-made weapons – did much more than all European and US sanctions on Russia. Russia understands only power. If we increase our power potential, then we will have a good result.”