‘People are dying in their homes’: Inside Russia’s war on Ukrainian energy
Since early January, Vladimir Putin’s forces have been systematically targeting the city's power stations.
For weeks, hundreds of Russian missiles and drones have bombarded Kyiv, with air raid sirens becoming a common sound this winter, which is the coldest many there can remember.
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As Russia’s invasion grinds to a crawl in Ukraine’s east, it can still exact a painful price on ordinary men and women hundreds of miles away in the country’s capital.
Since early January, Vladimir Putin’s forces have been systematically targeting the city's power stations, cutting people off from heat, water, and electric, leaving them at the mercy of temperatures reaching minus-20.
Several sources in Kyiv have told me this is the most difficult period the country has faced since the beginning of the war.
They have described stories of people freezing to death in their homes, nurseries full of children cut off from heating, frozen pipes bursting and flooding apartment blocks, where families huddle together at night to survive.
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Natalia Andrianova is a refugee living in Liverpool, but her elderly parents are among the more than 6,000 households without power in Kyiv.
“You’re constantly worried about how they are – [I’ve] been living with this horror for years,” she said.
“It can happen suddenly – yesterday I was talking to my mum, then our connection just finished [and cut her off].
“My parents always say that, for them, it is hard, but not compared to our soldiers outside on the frontline.”
This is longest and largest blackout Kyiv has faced to date, now well into its second week.
Just as maintenance teams worked to restore power in most of the buildings affected, another barrage of over 300 drones and missiles on Monday night once again plunged them back into darkness.
Oleksiy Povolotsky is head of recovery at Ukraine's largest energy supplier DTEK.
He told me that the company is working to decentralise Ukraine’s energy infrastructure – moving away from a handful of huge, Soviet-era substations, and diversifying into renewables, to make the grid more resistant to Russian attacks.
“Russians are like terrorists,” he said. “They see that we have a big frost coming – and they shell us intensively. Each new shelling has a multiplying effect.
“It’s impossible to stay inside homes at this temperature.
“But we’re doing our best to recover as much as possible. We believe that Ukraine can stay strong.”
The motive here is not new – Russia has weaponised the energy grid each winter since 2022. The ferocity of the recent attacks, though, are extraordinary, and as Ukraine runs short of vital ammunition for its air defence systems, more missiles are hitting their targets.
Jeremy Pizzi, a Legal Advisor at international law foundation Global Rights Compliance, is helping Ukrainian prosecutors to gather evidence of potential war crimes and crimes against humanity. He said these strikes bear features of both.
“The goal is the undermine Ukrainian morale, to succeed in its full-scale subjugation of Ukraine,” he said.
“These are widespread, systematic attacks, targeting the civilian population, part of an explicit state policy to destroy energy infrastructure and persecute the Ukrainian national group, on a scale that is hard to imagine.
“The level of exhaustion and demoralisation is palpable.”
The emergency is so acute that Ukraine’s President Zelenskyy is reportedly considering cancelling his trip to Switzerland to meet world leaders this week.
Plans for the Ukrainian delegation to sign an economic aid package with the US have also been derailed by the escalating row between President Trump and European leaders over control of Greenland.
The US president is set to address the economic summit in Davos on Wednesday, after insisting he would take over Greenland, a NATO territory, potentially by force.
If he does that, experts warn the alliance would effectively fall apart, making this the most fragile moment in transatlantic relations for 70 years.
If that rift widens, there are fears that US support for Ukraine could be withheld.
Heorhii Tykhyii, a Ukrainian diplomat, has been with Ukraine’s delegation in Davos.
He said they will be trying to keep peace talks at the top of the agenda, while lobbying for an urgent aid package to get Kyiv through its current crisis, including ammunition and mobile generators.
“Only with transatlantic unity can we protect ourselves collectively,” he said.
“Everyone needs to keep that in mind – because if we lose that, it will be impossible.”
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte also added to calls to prioritise Ukraine and find a solution to the Greenland crisis.
Speaking to reporters in Davos on Wednesday, he said: “This focus on Ukraine should be our number one priority – because it is crucial for European and US security.”
But, if the transatlantic alliance falls apart entirely, so could Ukraine.