Natalya Pavlovna watched her two-year-old son, Danylo, play with Lego inside a warm tent in Kyiv's Troieshchina district. Outside, temperatures plunged to -18C. The emergency facility, donated by Unicef, offered respite from the bitter cold, with adults sipping tea and charging phones. 'Russia is trying to break us. It's deliberate genocide against the Ukrainian people,' she said.
Her apartment is one of 2,600 buildings in the capital currently without power or heating. The Kremlin has targeted Ukraine's energy infrastructure since the start of its full-scale invasion nearly four years ago. In recent weeks, ballistic missiles flattened the Darnytska combined heat and power plant, which supplied much of the left bank of the Dnipro River. Capital-wide blackouts now restrict electricity to three or four hours a day.
Natalya compared the impact to the 1932-33 famine in Soviet Ukraine, engineered by Stalin. 'Putin wants to do to Kyiv what he did to Mariupol,' she said. Many residents have resorted to ingenious hacks to stay warm: heating bricks on gas stoves, erecting tents inside living rooms, and seeking refuge in cafes. Ukraine's state emergency service has set up shelters with beds.
Julia Po, an artist living in Kyiv's Dniprovskyi neighbourhood, showed her seventh-floor home, where frozen water pipes burst two weeks ago. With no electricity, the lift does not work, and a chill wind whips through slatted panels. She has insulated her front door with bubble wrap and sleeps under two blankets in thermal underwear. 'It's as if someone has stolen my home,' she said.
Toby Fricker, a Unicef spokesperson, noted the massive impact on families. In Kyiv, 45% of schools are closed due to lack of central heating. 'Kids and teenagers experience social isolation. They are missing out on normal life,' he said. Some mothers have swapped tips about cheap accommodation abroad, while others, like Yuliia, a mother of six-year-old twins, have decided to stay. 'We don't know how long this situation will last. It's cold. We sleep in our hats,' she said.
