Ukrainians endure freezing temperatures at home as emergency crews rush to restore power

BORYSPIL, Ukraine (AP) — Emergency repair crews are working flat out to restore power in the Kyiv region of Ukraine, officials said Wednesday, after relentless Russian barrages on energy infrastructure left Ukrainians at the mercy of the coldest winter in years.

At Boryspil, a town in the Kyiv region with a population of around 60,000, workers dismantled and rebuilt burned-out electrical systems as they rushed to fix the damage.

They work in the snow amid temperatures of -15 C (13 degrees F) from early morning till midnight, Yurii Bryzh, who leads the Boryspil regional department of private electricity provider DTEK, told The Associated Press.

They have managed to restore the supply for four hours a day. But Bryzh said the problem was “when the power comes back on, people turn on all the electrical equipment that is available in the house” as they dash to wash, cook or recharge their phones. That collapses the system again, he said.

The hardship of civilians is acute amid what Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko described as the longest and broadest outages since Russia’s full-scale invasion of its neighbor almost four years ago. Some homes have been going without electricity for days.

Apartments in the capital are freezing, and when venturing outside people wear heavy layers of clothes against the bitter cold that chills to the bone. Across Kyiv, snow covers the ground and roofs and is piled up next to sidewalks. At night, the streets are dark and towering apartment blocks show no light in the windows.

Kyiv residents told the AP how they cope with the lack of light and heat at home.

A married couple, scientists Mykhailo, 39, and Hanna, 43, said the temperature in the bedroom of their 5-year-old daughter Maria has fallen to -15 degrees C (13 degrees F). They gave only their first names for security reasons.

They have a gas stove to cook but at night they huddle together in the same bed under heavy blankets. “We have to use all the blankets we have in the house,” Hanna said.

The couple take their daughter to work with them during the day, because the premises have a generator whereas Maria’s kindergarten has no heating.

Christmas decorations still hang on the walls of their apartment, occasionally lit up by their flashlights.

Zinaida Hlyha, 76, said she heats water on her gas stove and puts it in bottles that she tucks into bed. She says she doesn’t complain because Ukrainian soldiers on the roughly 1,000-kilometer (600-mile) front line have it worse.

“Of course it’s hard, but if you imagine what our guys in the trenches are going through now, you have to endure,” she said. “What can you do? This is war.”

Tetiana Tatarenko said two of her sons are fighting in the war. She grew more fearful of Russia’s nighttime barrages after a Shahed drone hit the apartment building next door.

In her cold apartment, it seemed that normal life has shut down.

“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 what she calls “this terrifying cold.”

“Of course, it’s hard to survive this. We survived World War II, and now this terrible war is upon us,” she said.

Russian barrages are aiming at power plants and large substations, and procuring replacement equipment such as transformers can take months, according to Dennis Sakva, an energy sector analyst at Dragon Capital, a Ukrainian investment company.

“There are two types of heroes in Ukraine,” he said. “They are the military and energy workers.”

Volodymr Yurchuk in Kyiv, Ukraine contributed.

Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine