Putin punishes Kyiv by leaving it without electricity or heating in the coldest winter in years

KiivOksana Klymuk climbs ten flights of stairs to her apartment, laden with shopping bags, alongside her ten-year-old son, Michael. The boy is bundled up in winter clothes and doesn't take them off when he enters the apartment, because the central heating barely works and outside the thermometer reads sixteen degrees below zero. They only have a couple of hours of electricity a day, which they use to charge their cell phones and laptop batteries, or to run the washing machine. They never take the elevator because the power could go off at any moment. They also can't use the ceramic cooktop or the microwave. The mother, a professor of Hispanic philology at Taras Shevchenko University, doesn't complain: "Putin thinks that if we're cold we'll give up, but that's not going to happen." She devises strategies to protect her family from the cold and withstand the onslaught: she buys prepared food, keeps a thermos of hot water, and has installed a stove on the balcony to heat food or water for washing. The only thing she doesn’t need to worry about is the refrigerator: food is stored in boxes on the balcony, where the temperature is about the same as in the freezer.

The fourth winter of Russian invasion is the coldest yet: Ukrainians haven't seen such low temperatures or so much snow in over a decade, and the Kremlin has used this to inflict further damageonthe energy infrastructure, already severely impaired by constant missile and drone attacks since February 2022. The Russian invasion has targeted residents of Kyiv, with the stated aim of undermining public morale and pressuring the Ukrainian government to make even more concessions in the negotiations sponsored by Donald Trump. The damage is cumulative, and no matter how hard the workers at DTEK (the energy company that holds the country's electricity monopoly) try tofix the network. repair costs more than destruction: there's a shortage of clothing, equipment, and time. Putin knows this and has turned the cold into a weapon of war.

500 buildings without heating

Kyiv has long been the city of electricity generators: many shops and restaurants have noisy devices outside to compensate for the shortfalls of an electricity grid crippled by Russian attacks. People had become accustomed to living with scheduled power outages, but this winter is much worse. According to the city council, some 500 residential buildings in the city have lost their heating, and the freezing temperatures of these days are unbearable. Some homes have been without power since last Friday [January 9], when Russia attacked several transformer stations, three natural gas plants, and one coal-fired power plant that supply the capital. The authorities diverted what little power there was available to water pumping stations, the subway, hospitals, and other critical services, leaving thousands of homes without electricity. Kyiv is beyond the reach of Russia’s troops, but not of its drones and missiles, no matter how much air defence is deployed. The cold makes the city more vulnerable, and the weather forecast is not promising: next week the temperature could drop to -25°C. Oksana and her husband, Taras, a professor of English literature at the same university, have decided to stay in Kyiv for now. “We have our way of defending the country: teaching at the university—that’s our trench,” he says. He admits that psychologically it’s difficult to endure so many years of war, and he doesn’t judge those who have decided to leave. “Everyone has their own circumstances. If it gets much colder, and we lose all power, perhaps we’ll move to my parents’ house in the mountains, but before that, we’d stay in Kyiv at some friends’ houses.” Others, especially those who can work remotely, have decided to pack their bags and spend the winter in smaller cities.

In fact, the statements by Kyiv’s mayor, Vitali Klitschko, who on Monday asked residents who could to temporarily leave for other towns, have been the cause of the latest episode of rivalry with President Volodymyr Zelensky. The president has formed an emergency cabinet to address the energy crisis in the capital and has accused the mayor of having done “very little” to prepare the city for attacks. Klitschko, the imposing former boxer and Zelensky's rival, retorted that he should leave the politics aside.

During the first winter of the war, Moscow attempted to cripple the country's electrical infrastructure, but they failed. After these four years of intense attacks, it now appears that the Kremlin has tried a new strategy. It has focused on destroying thermal power plants, the grid, and transformers in three major cities—Kyiv, Odessa, and Dnipro—often with repeated attacks on the same facilities while they are undergoing repairs.

Schools closed

The energy crisis has forced authorities to close schools until February 1. Once again, the education system is operating at a bare minimum, with a hybrid model of online and in-person classes. The first two weeks of the school year after the Christmas holidays were cut short. "Since we returned to school on January 1st, we've only had online classes because it's cold and not everyone can go to school. But it has been complicated because sometimes there's no electricity at home or the internet is very slow. When there is electricity, we charge our phones, laptops, and batteries, but there’s not enough. The connection used to suddenly cut out during class," said a thirteen-year-old seventh-grade boy in front of his house. "The teachers give us homework, and we do it when we can or we study alone at home. We can't see our friends, but we talk on social media."

The Nobel Peace Prize, awarded in 2022 to the Center for Civil Liberties of Ukraine, offers provides no protection from the cold to one of its leading activists, Sasha Romantsova. She confesses that she has had no choice but to settle in the dining room of her house with her dog, wrapped in blankets and pillows. "I call it our nest," she jokes. She has retrieved a hot water bottle from her grandmother and is using the gas oven for warmth. "Putin wants to achieve with the cold what he hasn't been able to achieve on the front lines. And the most worrying thing is the economic impact: there are large stores that can't operate because they consume so much energy, and small businesses that will struggle to survive if they lose customers," she warns.

‘Energy for victory’

The Metro supermarket in the Desnyansky district, on the left bank of the Dnieper River, which flows through Kyiv, remains open thanks to enormous generators. Since the war began this establishment, which sells food, small appliances and clothing, has had a space with benches and tables where locals can charge their mobile phones and warm themselves throughout the day, from 6:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. "Energy for victory," read posters on the walls, accompanied by a drawing of a heart-shaped electric plug against the blue and yellow of the Ukrainian flag. A young man without electricity at home has come to take an online exam and sits in a corner at the back, deep in concentration. On the other side, an elderly woman charges her phone and a power bank.

Not far from there, Primary School 277 houses one of the so-called "invincibility points," which the government has set up to make winter more bearable. In addition to electricity, these offer tea, coffee and biscuits, blankets, and a play area for young children, where they can also wash. Large orange tents serving the same purpose are set up in many parts of the city. Ukrzaliznytsia, the country's railway operator, has deployed about a hundred train cars with independent generators in various cities in the Kyiv region. These are equipped to accommodate families affected by the blackouts, with heating, play areas, charging stations, Starlink internet access, and compartments where they can heat food and, if necessary, sleep. There are even special compartments for those with pets. Many train and metro stations already have shelters, but the advantage of these trains is that they can move quickly through areas suffering Russian attacks on the electrical infrastructure. To allow people to access these climate-controlled shelters at any time, authorities have even eased the nighttime curfew imposed since the start of the Russian invasion—an unprecedented measure.

Balancing on the icy footpath, 49-year-old sound technician Anatoli Yangol explains that he hasn't had electricity or hot water for days: "I shower at the gym, which is why I've been exercising more lately. We neighbours also help each other out: I had internet and I gave them the wifi link, while the others brought me other things. We know that Putin wants to demoralize us, to make a lot of people leave so his army can advance."