Before you start

An unlocked phone — eSIM is supported by all three operators
For registration: a passport, or your residence permit
Cash or a card; SIMs are sold everywhere including supermarkets

Step-by-step

1
Buy a SIM on arrival, and install the alert app before anything else
Operator shops are dense and supermarkets sell starter packs. Ask for a tariff with a large data allowance rather than minutes. Then, before the bank app or the taxi app, install Повітряна тривога and follow the Zaporizhzhia Oblast Military Administration's channel and the city's. In this oblast those are where the curfew changes and any civil-defence instruction are published first.
In personWho: YouHalf an hourStarter packs are inexpensive; generous monthly bundles are typically a few hundred hryvnia
2
Register the number to your document
At an operator shop with your passport or residence permit, or online where the operator supports it — Vodafone offers online registration, lifecell calls the process personification, and Kyivstar registers in shop against a Ukrainian or an international passport. It is not a legal obligation; it is what makes the number recoverable.
In personWho: YouFifteen minutesFree
3
Build the power and redundancy kit
A large power bank, a head torch, a UPS for the home router, a car charger — and, unusually for this app, a battery or wind-up radio. Home fibre goes down with the building's power unless the router is on a UPS, and mobile coverage thins as an outage drains base-station batteries. In a city where an official instruction might matter, a channel you can still receive when the network is degraded is worth having.
In personWho: YouOne shopping tripA power bank, a small UPS and a radio, a few thousand hryvnia together
4
If your work takes you outside the city, carry two networks and offline maps
Coverage south and east of Zaporizhzhia thins substantially, positioning is unreliable and infrastructure has been damaged. Anyone doing humanitarian, medical or logistics work outside the city carries a second SIM on a different operator, downloads offline maps and tells someone their route before leaving. This is normal professional practice here.
In personWho: YouOne shopping trip and one conversationA second SIM, a few hundred hryvnia

Documents you’ll need

Passport or residence permit, for registration
An unlocked handset, or an eSIM-capable one
Nothing at all, if you only want a working prepaid SIM today

Things most newcomers don’t know

Follow the oblast administration's channel, not an aggregator.

Curfew changes in this oblast are community-specific and they move; so would any civil-defence instruction relating to the nuclear plant. The oblast military administration publishes first and aggregators lag, sometimes by hours, and sometimes garble which communities an order applies to.

Source: Запорізька ОВА

Keep a radio. It is not nostalgia.

A phone is the primary alert channel and it depends on a network that depends on power. In the one city in this app where an official instruction could be time-critical and specific, a second, independent way to receive it is cheap insurance.

Source: community-reported / standard civil-defence practice

Ukraine does not require you to show a passport to buy and use a prepaid SIM.

It is genuinely unusual and catches people out in both directions — arrivals expect an ordeal and get none, then find months later that an unregistered number cannot be recovered after a theft.

Source: Kyivstar / Vodafone / lifecell registration pages

Kyivstar allows a maximum of ten numbers registered per document.

Relevant if you are setting up a team, a household or devices; the cap is on the document.

Source: Kyivstar

Common mistakes to avoid

Not installing the alert app and following the oblast channel on day one.
Not registering the number, then losing the phone.
Buying a tariff sold on call minutes. Almost nobody here calls; buy data.
Assuming home internet survives a blackout. It survives exactly as long as the router's power source does.
Relying on one operator, or on live navigation, outside the city.

Some of this may be out of date. Spotted something inaccurate? Help us keep it right for the next newcomer.

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