KIVSHARIVKA, UK: Nine-year-old Artem Panchenko helps his grandmother put out a smoky fire temporary outdoor kitchen Near their nearly abandoned apartment block. The light is falling fast and they need to eat before the sun sets, plunging their home into cold and darkness.
Winter is coming. They can feel it in their bones as the temperature drops below freezing. And like thousands of other Ukrainians, they are facing a season that promises to be brutal.
Since then Artem and his grandmother have been living without gas, water or electricity for almost three weeks. Russian missile attack Cut off utilities in his town in Ukraine’s eastern Kharkiv region. For him and some of the other residents who live on the premises in Kivsharivka, bundling up at night and cooking outside is the only way to survive.
“It’s cold and it’s bombing,” Artem said on Sunday as he helped his grandmother with the cooking. “It’s really cold. I’m sleeping in my clothes in my apartment.”
Adding to the foreshadowing about the coming winter, Russian attack On Monday and Tuesday, power plants were targeted by drones and missiles in Kyiv, the capital and several other Ukrainian cities. Ukrainian President Volodymyr zelensky said in a tweet on Tuesday that Russian attacks in the past week have destroyed 30% of his country’s power plants, causing “massive power outages across the country.”
As the cold begins, those who haven’t escaped months of heavy fighting, regular shelling and Russian occupation in eastern Ukraine are trying their best to figure out how to dig through the cold months.
In the nearby village of Kurilivka, Viktor Palyanitsa pushes a wheelbarrow full of freshly cut logs to his house by the side of the road. He passes a destroyed tank, the remains of damaged buildings and the site of a 300-year-old wooden church that Ukrainian forces fought to liberate the area from Russian occupation.
Palyanitsa, 37, said he had gathered enough wood for the whole winter. Still, he plans to start sleeping near a wood-burning stove in a dilapidated building instead of his house, as all the windows in his house have been blown up by flying shrapnel.
“It is not comfortable. We spend a lot of time collecting wood. You can see the situation in which we are living,” said Palyanitsa, quietly understanding the dire outlook for the next several months.
According to Roman Semenukha, a deputy of the Kharkiv regional government, authorities are working to gradually restore electricity to the region in the coming days, and repairs to water and gas infrastructure will come next.
“Only after that we will be able to start restoring heating,” he said.
He said officials were working to provide firewood to residents, but there was no time frame for when the utilities would be restored.
Palynitsa stood by her pile of scattered wood, not waiting for government help. He said he didn’t expect heating to be restored any time soon, but he feels ready to protect himself even as winter approaches.
“I have arms and legs. So I am not afraid of the cold, because I can find wood and heat the stove,” he said.
Authorities in Ukrainian-controlled areas of neighboring, the hotly contested Donetsk region have urged all remaining residents to evacuate, and warned that gas and water services in many areas are likely not to be restored until winter. Is. As in the Kharkiv region, ordinary Ukrainians are still living in thousands of homes that have been ruined by Russian attacks, with leaky or damaged roofs and cracked windows that are unable to provide protection from cold or wet weather.
The threat of winter without heating has spread beyond the front lines to other regions of Ukraine as well.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, angered and embarrassed by the Ukrainian attack on a vital bridge to annex Crimea, has intensified Russia’s bombing campaign, targeting civilian energy infrastructure around Ukraine and leaving many cities without electricity. and leaving the towns. Monday’s attacks affected Kyiv, Sumy in the northeast and Vinnytsia in western Ukraine.
In the center of Kurilivka, a group of men used a chainsaw to bring down a tree near a bus stop. As he worked, he warned an Associated Press reporter that Russian land mines were still hidden in the surrounding grass.
Much of the area’s cities were destroyed and modern amenities disappeared, but the campaign for survival brushes off any concerns about the earlier preservation. Without utilities, the homes have become like rudimentary shelters from the medieval era where residents lived by candlelight, collecting water from wells and bundling up cold shelters.
Artem’s grandmother, Irina Panchenko, said that she and her grandson are sleeping in a deserted apartment next door because all their windows were blown up by a Russian attack.
“After the first blast wave, we lost one window and two were damaged. After the second explosion, all other windows were destroyed,” she said. “It is too cold to live here. It’s hard to cook, it’s hard to run between the apartment and where we cook. my legs hurt.”
The high-rise courtyards of their apartment complexes feature makeshift lean-to structures where residents gather to cook over a fire. A woman collects wood scraps from a ground floor apartment that had been damaged by a Russian rocket attack. Another resident joked that his house had become a five-room apartment with the outer wall collapsing.
47-year-old Anton Sevrukov toasts bread and heats a kettle of water over a fire to bring tea to his disabled mother.
“No electricity, no water, no gas. We are cold,” he said. “I am making tea over the fire for my mother but she only drinks a little to warm up for a short period of time.”
Sevrukov’s mother sat under a blanket on a sofa with plates of spoiled food in the darkness of her cramped, stale apartment. Zoya Sevrukova said she had been bedridden for seven years, and that she spends most of her time playing solitaire with a pack of cards.
“It’s really cold now. If it wasn’t for my son, I would have frozen,” she said.
Sevrukov said he had asked a friend in the regional capital Kharkiv to buy him an electric heater – just in case power is restored. It is almost too much to think about the deprivation that lies ahead.
“I hope we have electricity soon, so we can somehow get through this winter,” he said.
Winter is coming. They can feel it in their bones as the temperature drops below freezing. And like thousands of other Ukrainians, they are facing a season that promises to be brutal.
Since then Artem and his grandmother have been living without gas, water or electricity for almost three weeks. Russian missile attack Cut off utilities in his town in Ukraine’s eastern Kharkiv region. For him and some of the other residents who live on the premises in Kivsharivka, bundling up at night and cooking outside is the only way to survive.
“It’s cold and it’s bombing,” Artem said on Sunday as he helped his grandmother with the cooking. “It’s really cold. I’m sleeping in my clothes in my apartment.”
Adding to the foreshadowing about the coming winter, Russian attack On Monday and Tuesday, power plants were targeted by drones and missiles in Kyiv, the capital and several other Ukrainian cities. Ukrainian President Volodymyr zelensky said in a tweet on Tuesday that Russian attacks in the past week have destroyed 30% of his country’s power plants, causing “massive power outages across the country.”
As the cold begins, those who haven’t escaped months of heavy fighting, regular shelling and Russian occupation in eastern Ukraine are trying their best to figure out how to dig through the cold months.
In the nearby village of Kurilivka, Viktor Palyanitsa pushes a wheelbarrow full of freshly cut logs to his house by the side of the road. He passes a destroyed tank, the remains of damaged buildings and the site of a 300-year-old wooden church that Ukrainian forces fought to liberate the area from Russian occupation.
Palyanitsa, 37, said he had gathered enough wood for the whole winter. Still, he plans to start sleeping near a wood-burning stove in a dilapidated building instead of his house, as all the windows in his house have been blown up by flying shrapnel.
“It is not comfortable. We spend a lot of time collecting wood. You can see the situation in which we are living,” said Palyanitsa, quietly understanding the dire outlook for the next several months.
According to Roman Semenukha, a deputy of the Kharkiv regional government, authorities are working to gradually restore electricity to the region in the coming days, and repairs to water and gas infrastructure will come next.
“Only after that we will be able to start restoring heating,” he said.
He said officials were working to provide firewood to residents, but there was no time frame for when the utilities would be restored.
Palynitsa stood by her pile of scattered wood, not waiting for government help. He said he didn’t expect heating to be restored any time soon, but he feels ready to protect himself even as winter approaches.
“I have arms and legs. So I am not afraid of the cold, because I can find wood and heat the stove,” he said.
Authorities in Ukrainian-controlled areas of neighboring, the hotly contested Donetsk region have urged all remaining residents to evacuate, and warned that gas and water services in many areas are likely not to be restored until winter. Is. As in the Kharkiv region, ordinary Ukrainians are still living in thousands of homes that have been ruined by Russian attacks, with leaky or damaged roofs and cracked windows that are unable to provide protection from cold or wet weather.
The threat of winter without heating has spread beyond the front lines to other regions of Ukraine as well.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, angered and embarrassed by the Ukrainian attack on a vital bridge to annex Crimea, has intensified Russia’s bombing campaign, targeting civilian energy infrastructure around Ukraine and leaving many cities without electricity. and leaving the towns. Monday’s attacks affected Kyiv, Sumy in the northeast and Vinnytsia in western Ukraine.
In the center of Kurilivka, a group of men used a chainsaw to bring down a tree near a bus stop. As he worked, he warned an Associated Press reporter that Russian land mines were still hidden in the surrounding grass.
Much of the area’s cities were destroyed and modern amenities disappeared, but the campaign for survival brushes off any concerns about the earlier preservation. Without utilities, the homes have become like rudimentary shelters from the medieval era where residents lived by candlelight, collecting water from wells and bundling up cold shelters.
Artem’s grandmother, Irina Panchenko, said that she and her grandson are sleeping in a deserted apartment next door because all their windows were blown up by a Russian attack.
“After the first blast wave, we lost one window and two were damaged. After the second explosion, all other windows were destroyed,” she said. “It is too cold to live here. It’s hard to cook, it’s hard to run between the apartment and where we cook. my legs hurt.”
The high-rise courtyards of their apartment complexes feature makeshift lean-to structures where residents gather to cook over a fire. A woman collects wood scraps from a ground floor apartment that had been damaged by a Russian rocket attack. Another resident joked that his house had become a five-room apartment with the outer wall collapsing.
47-year-old Anton Sevrukov toasts bread and heats a kettle of water over a fire to bring tea to his disabled mother.
“No electricity, no water, no gas. We are cold,” he said. “I am making tea over the fire for my mother but she only drinks a little to warm up for a short period of time.”
Sevrukov’s mother sat under a blanket on a sofa with plates of spoiled food in the darkness of her cramped, stale apartment. Zoya Sevrukova said she had been bedridden for seven years, and that she spends most of her time playing solitaire with a pack of cards.
“It’s really cold now. If it wasn’t for my son, I would have frozen,” she said.
Sevrukov said he had asked a friend in the regional capital Kharkiv to buy him an electric heater – just in case power is restored. It is almost too much to think about the deprivation that lies ahead.
“I hope we have electricity soon, so we can somehow get through this winter,” he said.