KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Olena Janchuk spent another cold day in quarantine in her high-rise apartment.
The former kindergarten teacher suffers from severe rheumatoid arthritis and has been trapped on the 19th floor of the Kiev tower (650 steps above ground) for weeks.
Russian bombing of power plants and transmission lines caused long daily blackouts, making operating elevators a luxury.
As January temperatures plunge to -10 degrees Celsius (14 degrees Fahrenheit), permanent lines of frost appear on the inside of Janchuk’s windows, with white patterns creeping up the glass by morning.
The 53-year-old huddled in front of a makeshift fireplace with candles stacked under bricks designed to absorb and slowly release heat. USB charging cables snaked across the floor from an overloaded power strip, while her electric blanket was connected to a power bank provided on the coldest days.
“When there’s no light or heat for seventeen and a half hours, you have to figure something out,” she said. “Bricks work best in small rooms, so that’s where we stayed.”
During the day, the family would move into rooms that enjoy the winter sun, with the function of each space changing according to the outage schedule. Thick clothes are left indoors at night, as the apartment has no central heating and the temperature drops quickly.
Kiev, a city of about 3 million people dotted with high-rise buildings, many of them from the Soviet era, is without power most of the time.
In the fourth winter of the war, electricity was a rationed commodity.
Residents plan their lives according to electricity schedules: when to cook, bathe, charge their phones and run their washing machines. Food is selected based on shelf life and water is filtered into bottles and stored in barrels. Small camping gas burners are used to heat soup or tea during a power outage.
Air raid sirens and the need for off-peak electricity can disrupt sleep.
Outside, in snow-covered Kiev, diesel generators rumble along the commercial streets. Shoppers used cell phone flashlights to navigate the aisles, and bars glowed by candlelight.
The app notifies the user to shorten the period of power usage (usually just a few hours), enough for the home to restart.
Life at the top just gets tougher
Residents of Janchuk’s 22-story building, located near a power station, can witness missile and drone attacks, with strobe lights illuminating the horizon at night.
During the blackout, they climbed the stairs in the dark, phone lights bouncing off the concrete steps, often accompanied by the echoing sounds of children and barking dogs. People sometimes leave plastic bags containing crackers or water in elevators for those trapped when the power goes out midway.
Janchuk’s husband works outside most of the day and delivers groceries in the evenings, while her mother, 72-year-old Lyudmila Bahurina, handles housework.
“It’s cold, but we can handle it,” the mother said, holding a square USB rechargeable flashlight she recently installed on the wall. “When the lights come on, I start turning on the washing machine, filling water bottles, cooking, charging the power bank, running around the kitchen, running around the house.”
In upscale neighborhoods, residents raise money to buy generators to keep elevators running. But most neighborhoods – home to pensioners, families and disabled people – cannot afford it.
Disability advocates, including groups representing injured veterans, say stairs have become an invisible social barrier that isolates people from their homes.
They urged city officials to fund generators for residential buildings.
Until then, life will revolve around electricity schedules. USB lights, power banks and inverter batteries have become household staples. Telegram chat helps neighbors check in on seniors and exchange outage updates.
From the upper floors, Kievians can overlook the skyline of high-rise buildings and the city’s historic golden-domed churches. At night, Russia continued to launch attacks on Ukrainian energy systems, and the flashes of explosions were clearly visible.
Russia causes massive damage to Ukrainian infrastructure
Even if electricity is imported from Europe, there are too many power stations and transmission lines to meet demand. To prevent grid collapse, operators implemented rolling blackouts to keep hospitals and critical services running while homes were plunged into darkness.
At a coal-fired power plant that has been hit many times, shift supervisor Yuri walks past the charred remains of machinery, collapsed roofs and control panels that have melted into useless lumps. The repair work was carried out by flashlight, with giant sandbags protecting the parts that still worked. Pictures of colleagues who died on the job hang near the entrance.
“The consequences of missile and drone attacks are horrific — massive,” he said.
Officials asked that the location of the plant and Yuri’s full name not be disclosed for security reasons.
“Our energy equipment has been destroyed. It’s expensive,” Yuri said. “Right now, we’re doing our best to recover.”
According to joint estimates by the World Bank, the European Commission and the United Nations, direct losses to Ukraine’s energy sector due to the war have exceeded US$20 billion.
Kyiv has repeatedly updated its strict winter power-saving plan, dimming or cutting off streetlights in areas with less traffic and investing in less concentrated power generation.
In the towers, rebuilding feels out of reach.
“To be honest, I’m tired, really tired. When you can’t go out, when you can’t see the sun, when there’s no light, you can’t even go to the store by yourself… it wears you down,” Bachulina said.
“But the important thing is, as all Ukrainians are saying now, we will endure everything until the war is over.”
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Associated Press writers Susie Brann and Dan Basakoff contributed to this report.
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Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine: https://apnews.com/hub/Russia-ukraine
