A member of the board of “Ukrenergo” died during restoration work on the object attacked by the Russian Federation – the company

Oleksiy Brecht, a member of the board of the National Energy Company “Ukrenergo”, tragically died during restoration work at one of the facilities that was recently hit by Russian attacks, the company reported.

“The entire Ukrainian energy industry suffered a huge loss. Today, a member of the board of our company and its former head, Oleksiy Brecht, tragically died. Death overtook him where he thought it necessary to be in order to return the light to people as soon as possible. For the second day in a row, Oleksiy Oleksandrovych personally supervised restoration work at one of the energy facilities recently attacked by the enemy,” the message reads.

Oleksiy Brecht was 47 years old. As the company reported, he worked at Ukrenergo for more than 24 of them. In recent years, Oleksiy Brecht was responsible for the operation, restoration, protection and development of the transmission system network. And in 2024-2025, he performed the duties of the chairman of the board of the company.

Russian troops launched another massive attack on Ukraine at night on January 20. In Kyiv, 5,635 high-rise buildings remained without heat, almost 80 percent of them are houses where heat supply was restored after the shelling on January 9.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyi announced in his evening address that on the evening of January 20, more than a million consumers remain without electricity in Kyiv, and there is no electricity in more than 4,000 high-rise buildings.

In Vinnytsia, a night Russian attack hit a critical infrastructure facility. The local authorities of Odesa also reported damage to the power plant. An attack on an industrial facility was announced in Poltava Oblast.

Since the beginning of the full-scale invasion in February 2022, Russia has been striking Ukraine’s energy infrastructure. Since the beginning of the fall of 2025, Russian forces have intensified their attacks on the Ukrainian energy industry.

The Security Service of Ukraine qualifies Russia’s strikes on Ukrainian energy infrastructure as crimes against humanity. The SBU previously noted that since the beginning of this year’s heating season, it has documented 256 air attacks by the Russian Federation on energy facilities and heat supply systems of Ukraine.

Read also: Water supply has been restored in Kyiv, heat will be restored in the morning – Shmyhal