A bitter wind of minus 15°C howls through the streets of Kyiv as the Russia-Ukraine war is about to mark its fourth anniversary on February 24 this year. This is the fourth winter since the Russian invasion, and Kyiv is facing its harshest cold snap since 2014. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Monday, February 9, that temperatures in Kyiv dropped to minus 20°C, with around 1,400 apartment buildings left without heat or power due to bombings. Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko told The New York Times (紐約時報) that in January, about half of the city's three million residents experienced heating outages.
The Environmental Information Center (環境資訊中心) interviewed Ukrainian journalist Taras Andrukhovych, who recently visited Taiwan, exploring from his perspective how Ukrainians show resilience in the midst of the war.
How do you get through winter during a war?
There might be situations where the power is on for two hours and off for six hours. As the Russian military shifts its strategy to focus attacks on infrastructure, Ukraine's electricity supply has become extremely unstable. Andrukhovych said that to cope with temperatures as low as minus 15°C and unpredictable power outages, Ukrainians have developed a set of survival skills.
"It's impossible to survive without heating. People can only put on as many clothes as possible on themselves and their children, trying to get by like this. And in big cities like Kyiv or Kharkiv that have subways, the underground is much warmer than the apartments," said Andrukhovych. Many people spend the night in the subway with their children and pets because it's the safest place.
According to UN News, the government and private groups have set up thousands of "Points of Invincibility"—places like restaurants, schools, or public tents with their own generators that provide hot food, hot water, and electricity. "People who can't afford to buy generators or storage devices go to these public tents, and everyone shares resources there."
Taras Andrukhovych pointed out that people take the chance to fully charge all their devices, or at least make sure their phones can be used. "Through a mobile app, we can know from which direction the artillery shells are coming, how long until they arrive, and when we should hide in a shelter."
He also added, "During bombings, remember the two-wall principle—it’s safer to stand in the hallway and don’t stay in rooms with windows." The damaged infrastructure can only be maintained by repair workers sticking to their posts. Taras Andrukhovych mentioned that they risked secondary bombings to carry out repairs and were seen by the public as new national heroes. He also emphasized, "Even after the repairs, the Russian army still bombs every day."
The importance of distributed power is increasing
According to Ukraine's Ministry of Energy (能源部), on February 24, 2022, the day Russian troops invaded, Ukraine simultaneously cut its connections with the Russian and Belarusian power grids and carried out a planned "Island Mode Test." The test, originally scheduled for three days, ended up becoming a permanent split because of the outbreak of war. In March that same year, Ukraine successfully connected to the European Mainland Powergrid coordinated by the European Network of Transmission System Operators for Electricity, or ENTSO‑E (歐洲輸電系統營運商網絡), becoming a key pipeline supporting Ukraine’s energy during the war.
In Ukraine, decentralized power supply is really important. Besides extra power support from connecting to the grids of neighboring countries, some facilities, buildings, and homes also have generators or energy storage systems. "Around the first or second year of the war, some Ukrainians started buying home generators." said Andrukhovych.
The dilemma of nuclear energy
Before the war, nuclear power made up about 50% of Ukraine's energy, but thermal power plants east of the Dnipro River, like Zmiiv and Kharkiv-5, have been destroyed by the war, causing the overall share of nuclear energy to keep rising.
Before the war, Ukraine had four nuclear power plants up and running, but now it’s dealing with nuclear safety issues in wartime. In 2022, Europe's biggest nuclear plant, Zaporizhzhya NPP, was taken over by Russian forces. By 2023, the Kakhovka Dam, which supplied water to the Zaporizhzhya plant, was blown up, and the cooling pools started to run low. The other plants—the South Ukraine NPP, Rivne NPP, and Khmelnytskyi NPP—are still keeping the lights on. The IAEA (國際原子能總署) says that because nearby substations keep getting bombed, even if the reactors are fine, they sometimes have to dial down power output to keep the grid stable and safe.
Taras Andrukhovych shared his observation that in the early days of the war, people were extremely panicked about nuclear disasters; but as the conflict dragged on, in order to maintain basic survival electricity, the public was forced to accept the unstable state of nuclear safety during wartime. He sighed, "Things are already bad enough, and now no one cares anymore."
Information battlefield: Telegram becomes a news source
Besides energy supply and nuclear safety, another war is also happening on phone screens. False information about the Russia-Ukraine war is spreading widely worldwide, even reaching Chinese-speaking users.
Telegram, a messaging app created by Russians, has become the most effective information tool for Ukraine to resist the invasion. "Although some people worry about its background, during the war, it’s an information channel that can keep up with the speed of missiles," said Andrukhovych.
According to a report from Oxford University, users who are skeptical about government censorship and think that traditional TV and broadcast media aren't objective are more likely to use Telegram. Taras Andrukhovych also pointed out that Telegram has a lot of different channels and news sources to follow so people can keep track of trusted opinion leaders like the president, military figures, various official channels, as well as frontline independent journalists, and so on.
In Ukraine, the war hasn't brought everything to a halt; ordinary people still go about their daily lives. "To survive during a war, it's really important that society keeps running," Andrukhovych sighed. "Ukraine has already adapted to these things, trying to live as normally as possible in this environment—what else can you do?"
A brief ceasefire in the cold winter, then a new round of attacks has arrived
On January 29, U.S. President Donald Trump said that Russian President Vladimir Putin had agreed to pause attacks on Kyiv and other cities for a week during the cold weather.
Unfortunately, it didn’t last long, as Russia then launched the largest airstrike of 2026, hitting energy facilities and cutting off heating for thousands of households.
According to a report by PTS News (公視新聞), Zelensky pointed out that during the cold winter, Trump asked to stop attacks on energy facilities, however, "We saw Russia respond to this request with record-breaking ballistic missiles, and it was only four days later."
The Russia-Ukraine war will mark its fourth anniversary on February 24, and on February 7, Zelensky said that the U.S. government hopes the war will end before June of this year. Zelensky also pointed out that the U.S. is pushing a new initiative for both Ukraine and Russia to temporarily stop attacking each other's energy infrastructure as a first step to de-escalating the conflict.
Translated by Joey Adams; Proofread by Vita Liu (劉祐君).
*Note: This article has been translated between Chinese and English. Proper names and pinyin spellings are provided for reference only.
參考資料
- 紐約時報（2026年2月10日），Russia Knocked Out the Heat. So She Slept in a Tent on Her Bed
- 聯合國新聞（2026年1月30日），Keeping people warm as winter and war tighten grip on Ukraine
- 國際原子能總署（2025年12月19日），Update 333 – IAEA Director General Statement on Situation in Ukraine
- 公視新聞網（2026年2月4日），俄發動今年對烏最大空襲 極寒停火協議破局
