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Emergency crews are working hard to restore power Kyiv Russia’s relentless attacks on energy infrastructure have left Ukrainians suffering the coldest winter in years, officials said Wednesday.
In Boryspil, a town in the Kiev region with a population of about 60,000, workers dismantled and rebuilt a burned-out power system while urgently repairing damage.
Yurii Bryzh, head of the Boryspil regional unit of private power supplier DTEK, told The Associated Press that they worked in snow at -15 degrees Celsius (13 Fahrenheit) from early morning to midnight.
They managed to restore supply for four hours a day. But Bryzh said the problem is “when the power comes back on, people turn on every available electrical device in their home” as they rush to take a shower, cook or charge their phones. This again crashed the system, he said.
Kyiv mayor says civilian suffering is severe Vitali Klitschko It is said to be the longest and most widespread blackout since Russia launched a full-scale invasion of its neighbor nearly four years ago. Some homes have been without power for days.
Apartments in the capital are cold and people put on thick layers of clothing when going out to protect themselves from the biting cold. Across Kiev, snow covered the ground and roofs and piled up along sidewalks. At night, the streets are dark and there are no lights in the windows of the tall apartment buildings.
Kyiv residents told The Associated Press how they cope with the lack of light and heat in their homes.
A married couple, 39-year-old scientists Mykhailo and Hannah43-year-old 5-year-old daughter talks about temperature in bedroom Maria It has dropped to -15 degrees Celsius (13 degrees Fahrenheit). For security reasons, they were only identified by first name.
They had a gas stove for cooking, but at night they huddled together in the same bed, covered with thick blankets. “We have to use all the blankets we have in the house,” Hanna said.
The couple took their daughter to work during the day because the workplace had a generator and Maria’s kindergarten had no heating.
Christmas decorations still hang on the walls of their apartment, occasionally illuminated by flashlights.
Zinaida Hlyha, 76, said she used a gas stove to heat water, put it in bottles and stuffed them on her bed. She said she was not complaining because conditions were worse for Ukrainian soldiers on the roughly 1,000-kilometer (600-mile) front.
“It’s certainly hard, but if you imagine what our people in the trenches are going through right now, you have to live with it,” she said. “What can you do? This is war.”
Tetiana Tatalenko said two of her sons are fighting in the war. She became even more frightened by Russian nighttime artillery attacks after a Shahd drone hit the apartment building next door.
In her cold apartment, normal life seems to have stopped.
“It’s like life at home has stopped, that’s what it feels like,” she said.
Her neighbor, 89-year-old physicist Raisa Derhachova, lives alone and sometimes plays the piano in what she calls “the terrible cold.”
“Of course it’s difficult to survive. We survived World War II and now this terrible war is coming upon us,” she said.
Dennis Sakva, an energy industry analyst at Ukrainian investment firm Dragon Capital, said Russia’s barrages are targeting power plants and large substations, and procuring replacement equipment such as transformers could take months.
“There are two types of heroes in Ukraine,” he said. “They are military and energy workers.”
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Volodymr Yurchuk in Kiev, Ukraine, contributed.
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Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine: https://apnews.com/hub/Russia-ukraine