Thousands of locals have left Kyiv amid blackouts

Residents of the Ukrainian capital are facing massive power outages, a lack of water and heat as Russia intensifies attacks on the country's energy grid. As many as 600,000 may have left the city.

For weeks, residents of the Ukrainian  capital of Kyiv have been suffering as Russia continues to attack Ukraine's power infrastructure. Matters have been made worse by sub-zero temperatures in the double digits.

Some 2,600 high-rise buildings were still without heating on January 22, according to Kyiv's mayor Vitali Klitschko.

So it is not surprising that many people are leaving the city.

Among them are Anastasia and her family. "We had no electricity, no heating and no water, we — my husband, my two children and I — moved into my parents' dacha [garden house] and my father is also joining us here," she told DW.

The dacha, outside of town, has a gas boiler and a diesel generator in the garden.

"Then we have light, water and heat," she says. "We get the water from a well. When the generator is running, we have electricity and the pumps are working."

As a beautician, Anastasia has flexible working hours that mostly depend on her clients wishes, although she is actually currently on vacation. "My husband is an energy engineer and has to commute to Kyiv every day. The road is long and difficult, as the highway is icy. It takes him up to two hours to get to work," Anastasia explains.

Discounted accommodation

Ukrainian writer and translator Tamara Horicha Sernja has also left Kyiv with her children.

"I saw a Facebook post by a woman offering people from Kyiv a 50% discount at her hotel in the [western Ukrainian] Lviv region," Sernja told DW. "She charges around 900 hryvnia [equivalent to €18] per day for an adult with three meals. So the very next day, we packed our things and set off."

There are also several other guests from Kyiv staying at the hotel, Sernja says, many of them women with children.

Most of the capital's schools and other educational institutions have extended the winter break until February 1. The government hopes that the energy saved by doing so can be redistributed to residential areas.

As many as 600,000 of Kyiv's 3.6 million inhabitants may have left Kyiv since Russia began intensifying its attacks on January 9, according to Klitschko. The mayor's press office says this figure is based on cell phone usage data, meaning there are currently 600,000 fewer phones in operation in Kyiv than usual.

Kyiv's military administration questions these figures though, arguing that they are too high. There are disagreements on how best to measure how many people have actually left the city.

Alone with her baby

Anya Syrotenko is one of those staying in the city. She comes from the Russian-occupied part of the Kherson region and now lives in a Kyiv high-rise. She takes care of her three-month-old baby as her husband has been called up for military service.

"I live on the 15th floor. There is hardly any electricity, and without it, there is no water either," Syrotenko told DW.

Since her stove doesn't work without electricity, she has bought a gas camping stove. "I can use it to fry eggs and heat water to wash the baby," Syrotenko says. "It's good that I am breastfeeding the baby," she adds, noting with relief that the heating in her apartment block has worked so far, with the exception of the day of the last major Russian attack.

Kindergarten without heating

Marta Semenyuk, another Kyiv resident, has been without heating in her apartment block for weeks.

The family uses their gas oven to generate a little bit of warmth.

"If there is electricity, we also set up a fan to distribute the heat in the apartment," she says.

Semenyuk no longer wants to take her child to the kindergarten, although it remains open. "Last week, the temperature there was only 11 to 13 degrees Centigrade. We were promised that a generator would be switched on for additional heating. So we took the children there but nobody turned it on. That's how the little girl got bronchitis," Semenyuk says.

Kyiv authorities have been providing hot meals for vulnerable citizens, above all pensioners and people with disabilities.

On January 13, Mayor Klitschko announced that he had instructed city administrators to provide a hot meal every day for needy residents who were registered in their districts. "These are mainly older people living by themselves," Klitschko said.

Volunteers are also helping out. "We use our cars to bring hot meals directly to elderly people and those with disabilities," says Mykola Diachenko, who heads a self-help organization in Kyiv. "We are in contact with property managers in almost every apartment block. They see who is not mobile and pass this information on to us and also help distribute the meals. I deliver around 115 meals every week."

For some, no heating until spring

Meanwhile Ukrainian engineers are risking their lives to restore electricity, water and heat to civilians, even as harsh weather makes their work very difficult.

According to Roman Nitsovych, research director at the Ukrainian think tank DiXi Group, around 20% of apartments in Kyiv are currently without heating.

"It takes time to reconnect everyone," Nitsovych notes. "It can take one to two weeks." Smaller heating plants are currently doing the heavy lifting and "even when the heat supply is restored, it will not be possible to provide full power," he says.

Worse yet, in buildings where pipes or radiators have burst due to freezing water, there will likely be no heating until spring, Nitsovych says. He's worried that the heating systems of entire apartment blocks will have to be replaced.

This article was translated from German.