As Russia Strikes Power Plants, Ukrainians Brace For A Harsh Winter
A woman warms her dog in Kivsharivka on October 16.
As the temperature dips below freezing, those in eastern Ukraine who haven't already escaped the fierce fighting, ongoing shelling, and months of Russian occupation must now prepare for winter.
Iryna Panchenko removes a pot of food from a makeshift stove next to her 9-year-old grandson Artem in Kivsharivka. "It's cold and there are bombings," Artem said as he helped his grandmother with the cooking next to their nearly abandoned apartment block.
Located north of Donetsk, Kivsharivka's residents have been living without gas, water, or electricity for nearly three weeks following Russian missile strikes that cut off the town's utilities.
Artem eats in the apartment he shares with his grandmother. "It's really cold. I'm sleeping in my clothes in our apartment," he said.
For Artem and his grandmother, bundling up at night and cooking outdoors is the only way to survive. Iryna says she and her grandson have been sleeping in an abandoned apartment next door since all their windows were blown out by a Russian strike.
"After the first explosion wave, we lost one window and two were damaged. After the second explosion, all the other windows were destroyed," she said. "It's very cold living here. It's hard to cook, it's hard to run between the apartment and where we cook. My legs hurt."
In the nearby village of Kyrylivka, Viktor Palyanitsa piles freshly cut logs in the yard of his house. Palyanitsa, 37, says he's gathered enough wood to last the entire winter. Still, he plans to begin sleeping beside a wood-burning stove in an outbuilding, since all of the windows in his house have been blown out by flying shrapnel.
"It's not comfortable. We spend a lot of time gathering wood. You can see the situation we're living in," Palyanitsa said.
Makeshift lean-to structures dot the overgrown courtyards of apartment complexes where Anton Sevrukov, 47, 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," Anton said. "I'm making tea for my mother on the fire but she only drinks a little bit to warm up for a short time."
In the darkness of his cramped, musty apartment, Sevrukov's mother (left) sits under a blanket on a sofa piled with plates of spoiled food. Zoya Sevrukova says she's been bedridden for seven years, and that she spends most of her time seated, playing solitaire with a worn pack of cards. "It's really cold now. If it weren't for my son, I would have frozen," she said.
Sevrukov says he's asked a friend from Kharkiv, the regional capital, to buy him an electric heater -- just in case the power is restored. It's almost too much to even think about the deprivation that could lie ahead. "I hope we'll have electricity soon, so we can live through this winter somehow," he said.
Workers repair a central heating pipe in the Saltivka neighborhood of Kharkiv on October 15.
Authorities are working to gradually restore electricity to the area in the coming days, and repairs to water and gas infrastructure will come next, according to Roman Semenukha, a deputy with the Kharkiv regional government. "Only after that will we be able to begin to restore heating," he said.
A local man walks past a Russian rocket stuck in the pavement in Kivsharivka.
Palyanitsa is not waiting for government help. He says he doesn't expect heating to be restored anytime soon, but that he feels ready to fend for himself even once winter sets in. "I have arms and legs. So I'm not scared of the cold, because I can find wood and heat the stove," he said.
Locals in Kivsharivk carry plastic bottles of water after filling them up at a local well.
Authorities in the Ukrainian-controlled areas have urged all remaining residents to evacuate, and warned that gas and water services in many areas will likely not be restored by winter.
Local men cut down a tree for firewood in Kurylivka.
To add to the misery, many are living in homes that have been wrecked by Russian strikes, with leaky or damaged roofs and blown-out windows that are unable to provide protection against cold or wet weather.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said on October 19 that Russia's missile and drone attacks on power stations and other civilian infrastructure in Ukraine were "acts of pure terror" that amount to war crimes.
"Targeted attacks on civilian infrastructure with the clear aim to cut off men, women, children [from] water, electricity, and heating with the winter coming, these are acts of pure terror and we have to call it as such," von der Leyen said.
She also reiterated the European Union's support for Ukraine "for as long as it takes."