Ukraine's Frozen Apartments: How Residents Survive In -15°C Freeze, Without Electricity, In Daily Struggle With War. “Life Stopped Here”
In the middle of winter, with temperatures plunging to -15°C, residents of Kyiv and the city of Borispil are surviving in apartments without electricity or heating after Russian bombing destroyed Ukraine's energy infrastructure.
Kyiv city PHOTO: Olena Zashko/ Facebook
American journalists from the Associated Press visited Borispil and Kiev to report on the consequences of Russian bombing of power plants and substations, as well as the efforts of energy workers to restore power in extreme conditions.
“The repairmen work in the snow, at temperatures of -15 degrees, from early morning until midnight”said Yuriy Bryzh, the head of the Boryspil regional branch of the private company DTEK, reports focus.
Even so, his team was only able to restore power for four hours a day.
“When people turn on all the electrical appliances at once, the system gets overloaded and breaks down again,” explained Bryzh.
Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko has warned that the city is facing the longest and most extensive power outages since the beginning of the Russian invasion in 2022. Some homes remain without electricity for days.
For the residents, winter turns into a daily struggle for survival. Mykhailo and Anna, scientists aged 39 and 43, tell how the temperature in their five-year-old daughter Maria's bedroom drops to -15 degrees.
They have a gas stove for cooking, but at night they all pile into one bed under all the available blankets. To avoid the cold, they take their daughter to work, where there is a generator, since Maria's kindergarten has no heating.
Zinaida Hlyga, 76, heats water on the stove and pours it into bottles, which she takes with her to bed to keep warm.
“I'm not complaining, because our soldiers at the front have it much harder”she says.
“Of course it's hard, but if you think about what the boys go through in the trenches, you'll understand that you have to endure. What else can you do here? This is war.”, the woman added.
Tetyana Tatarenko, from Borispil, sees her home almost hit by Russian drones and says it's so cold now that “life stopped”.
Her neighbor, Raisa Dergachova, 89, lives alone and plays the piano in the terrible cold.
“We survived the Second World War, and now this terrible war is hitting us”the woman confesses.
“The Russians are bombing large power plants and substations. Replacing equipment like transformers can take months. There are two types of heroes in Ukraine: the military and energy workers,” says energy sector analyst Dennis Sakwa of Dragon Capital.
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy announced that the energy sector will operate in an emergency mode to deal with the consequences of the bombings and extreme weather conditions. A special office will coordinate the restoration of electricity and heat supply in Kyiv.
Currently, according to Mayor Klitschko, about 400 high-rise buildings in the capital remain without heating, and residents can be without electricity for up to 10 hours a day.
