Snow is falling and night-time temperatures are dropping to as low as minus 20 degrees Celsius but hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians are without electricity or heat due to mass Russian strikes that target energy facilities.
As Moscow’s war against Ukraine soon begins its fifth year, the country is enduring its harshest winter since the full-scale invasion began in February 2022.
Relentless Russian drone and missile attacks have hit major cities including Kharkiv, Dnipro, Kryvyi Rih, and Odesa, but the situation is currently most severe in the capital, Kiev.
The city of 3 million residents is likely to be heading towards a humanitarian catastrophe if Russian attacks continue. In central Kiev, heavily bundled-up people navigate icy, uncleared pavements in the biting minus 12 degrees during the day.
Outside shops, generators rattle. One coffee kiosk near the border guard service building is dark and without the usual lunchtime queue.
“We cannot make coffee. We can only sell baked goods,” the young saleswoman says regretfully. In a nearby back yard, a café still has power and sells hot drinks. Customers crowd the till.
The red digits on a digital display near the ceiling jump wildly between 190 and 250 volts. But shortly afterwards, the power there also fails.
Power cuts become part of daily life
This has been the sad daily reality in Kiev for days, and not only in the capital. Scheduled hourly power outages returned in the autumn.
At that time the Russian military resumed systematic attacks on substations, power plants and also heating plants.
Moscow aims to break Ukrainians’ fighting spirit and stamina. The situation in Kiev became extreme after devastating impacts by ballistic missiles and drones in early January.
Districts on the east bank of the city were without electricity for several days. Just over 6,000 blocks of flats, and thus several hundred thousand residents, were without heat.
In mid-January, new Russian missile strikes worsened the situation in the western part of Kiev. Since then, emergency shutdowns have been the order of the day across the metropolis.
Public transport, which depends on electricity, is faltering, and many in Kiev can no longer plan when to wash clothes or cook food.
Non-functioning lifts in the many high-rise buildings are an insurmountable obstacle especially for older and disabled people.
Heat from bricks via gas cookers
Kiev Mayor Vitali Klitschko said staff at energy companies were working around the clock to repair the damage.
“But unfortunately Kiev is currently living with emergency power cuts,” he admits.
Around 300 blocks of flats are still completely without heating. Yet even the formal restoration of district heating does not guarantee a warm flat.
Many in Kiev complain of only lukewarm radiators and, in some cases, single-digit temperatures in their homes.
City residents with gas cookers sometimes use the flames to heat bricks and, wrapped in towels, use them as heat sources, including in their beds.
On social networks many in Kiev share their daily lives and encourage each other.
“We are in the Canaries. We are in the Maldives,” jokes Taras Nesterenko in a TikTok video. He is seen lying under a duvet wearing a hat and thick jumper.
He says the temperature in his flat is 13 degrees and there has been no power for more than 10 hours. His wife shares her dearest wish: “I want to switch on the washing machine.”
Ukrainians are not entirely unprepared. During the first winter of the war, massive Russian attacks on the power grid already caused repeated, hours-long outages.
Many, especially wealthier Ukrainians, bought generators, charging stations, batteries, candles and camping stoves.
Blackout refuge centres
Mobile phone operators must ensure that their networks can operate for at least 10 hours without external power.
The state set up so-called “Points of Invincibility” in schools and public offices, some open around the clock, providing phone and device charging, internet access and a place to warm up over a cup of tea.
In Kiev, more than 1,200 such sites have been set up, according to the authorities.
“We have a generator, a potbelly stove and wood. There is tea and warm blankets. We have everything necessary,” says Viktoria Telehyna, the director of a school that is open around the clock for people to warm up.
Easing of the night-time curfew
For the city’s pupils, Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko ordered holidays until February 1. Because of the adverse circumstances, the rules for the war-time, night-time curfew were also eased.
It is now permitted not only to go to shelters during air raid alerts but also to spend the whole night in one of the warming points.
In addition, there are currently 45 civil protection warming tents operating around the clock in districts particularly affected by heating failures and power shortages.
“We only suspend our work during air raid alerts and ask people to go to one of the nearby shelters,” the Kiev Civil Protection Service spokesman Pavlo Petrov tells the city TV channel.
Older people with limited mobility are supplied with hot meals by the state social service, according to the information provided.
Was Kiev insufficiently prepared?
Given the dramatic situation in the capital, Mayor Klitschko is also facing criticism from President Volodymyr Zelensky.
“The situation is particularly difficult in Kiev. The city administration lost time and what was not done at the city level is now being corrected at the government level,” Zelensky said recently.
The federal government’s intervention in Kiev also signalled that an old political conflict is flaring up again.
Zelensky and Klitschko were rivals in the 2019 presidential election. Despite the political truce due to the Russian war, there are repeated jibes between the two.
Klitschko blasted Zelensky’s latest accusation as a manipulation of the situation and a “blatant untruth.” Going on the counteroffensive, the mayor accused Zelensky of no constructiveness, only “hatred.”
With Russia continuing to pound its neighbour with its vast arsenal, there is unlikely to be any relief soon, as any repairs completed could be quickly undone with new strikes.
And the forecast for the next few weeks is for subzero temperatures to continue.
The 19th-century monument to the Grand Prince of Kiev Volodymyr the Great overlooks the partially frozen Dnipro river and the left-bank of Kiev. The Ukrainian capital faces consistent subzero temperatures in winter. Danylo Antoniuk/Ukrinform/dpa
Thousands of Kiev residents are facing heatless flats as Russia bombards the capital city’s energy infrastructure. Moscow wants to break Ukrainians’ fighting spirit and stamina, many believe. Notr credited/Ukrinform/dpa