The Cost of Blackouts and Hunger in Ukraine

Ukrainians are preparing for the worst

Getty/The National News

The lights are going out all over Ukraine as the war rages on, targeting civilian infrastructure. A bitter winter is descending on a courageous country, and millions of residents are preparing for the cold and the dark. This weekend, Vitali Klitschko, the mayor of Kyiv, warned that water, electricity and heat may be broken down entirely.

“Let's be frank," Mr Klitschko said. “Our enemies are doing everything for the city to be without heat, without electricity, without water supply, in general, so we all die."

The Ukrainians are preparing for the worst even while their enemies are doing everything possible to make this a miserable winter.

But they may have underestimated how resilient Ukrainians can be. They held back the Russians from the gates of their capital. They made it through a summer of intense warfare in the south and the east. Their country has been violated but they remain committed to complete territorial integrity. Despite US President Joe Biden’s private requests for negotiations with the Russians – surely a way of propping up his own midterm election battle – Ukrainians are determined to get the total return of their country. But wars in winter, even for Russians who fought in the depths of the winter in Chechnya and the mountains of Afghanistan, are notoriously difficult to fight, and harder for civilians to endure. Those who can flee will, but those who cannot – the disabled, the poor, the elderly – will literally freeze.

Read the full story in The National News here.