"We have to use all the blankets we have in the house."
Although emergency repair crews in Ukrainian cities are working at full capacity to restore electricity, the situation is far from improving.
Russian attacks on energy infrastructure have left Ukrainians without light and heat in the coldest winter in recent years. Hundreds of apartment buildings in Kyiv remain without heating. And while emergency repair crews are working at full capacity to restore electricity, the situation is far from improving. The Associated Press spoke with Kyiv residents to learn how they are coping with the lack of light and heat in their homes.
A married couple, Mykhailo, 39, and Anna, 43, said they have a gas stove for cooking, but at night they huddle together in one bed under thick blankets. "We have to use all the blankets we have in the house," Anna said.
During the day, the couple takes their 5-year-old daughter Maria with them to work because there is no heating in Maria's kindergarten. 76-year-old Zinaida Hlyga said she heats water on the gas stove and pours it into bottles, which she places in bed. She says she does not complain because Ukrainian soldiers on the front lines have it even worse.
"Of course, it’s hard, but if you think about what our guys are going through in the trenches, you have to endure," she said. "What can you do? It’s war."
Tatyana Tatarenko said that two of her sons are fighting in the war. After a Shahed drone hit a neighboring apartment building, she became even more afraid of nighttime Russian shelling.
"It’s as if life in the house has stopped, that’s the feeling," she said.
Her neighbor, 89-year-old physicist Raisa Derhachova, lives alone and sometimes plays the piano in the "terrible cold."
"Of course, it’s hard to endure. We survived World War II, and now this terrible war has hit us," she said.
What’s happening with light and heat in Kyiv
In January, the Russian Federation attacked the capital’s thermal power plants - TPP-5 and TPP-6 - leaving half of Kyiv without heat. Hundreds of apartment buildings in the capital remain without heating.
Due to the difficult situation, President Volodymyr Zelensky declared a state of emergency in Ukraine's energy sector.
At the same time, energy expert Hennadiy Ryabtsev stated in an interview with UNIAN that TPP-5 and TPP-6 are unlikely to operate at full capacity at least until the end of the current heating season.
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