Cold front Ukraine faces a dark winter as Russia attacks power networks

Valentyna Ivanivna showed off her new head torch. It was a present from her grandson. Most evenings she wears it while doing household chores: cooking dinner, washing up and stacking plates. “It’s impossible to plan anything without power. You can’t even invite people round for a cup of tea because the kettle won't work. It’s stressful and exhausting for everyone,” she said.

- Luke Harding

Ivanivna lives in Chernihiv, an ancient Ukrainian city known for its early medieval cathedrals. The border with Belarus and Russia is a short drive away, across a landscape of pine forests, villages with geese and the occasional wandering moose. In 2022 Russian troops invaded. They laid siege to Chernihiv, pulling out after six weeks and rolling north.

Over the autumn, Russia’s war dramatically returned in the shape of thousands of killer drones. The Kremlin has launched a determined attempt to plunge the whole of Ukraine into darkness, stepping up an existing campaign of mass destruction. It has targeted thermal power plants, substations and rescue workers as they battle to save the electricity network.

Ukraine is now facing its most difficult winter since 2022. Blackouts have become a part of everyday life. In an interview this month between the Guardian and Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the lights failed in the president’s palace. Cafes and shops function as best as they can, against a noisy hum from pavement generators.

Chernihiv is the worst affected region, together with Sumy and Kharkiv, which also border Russia. “We are without power for 14 hours a day. Today it went off at 5.30am, came back at 10.30am, and disappeared at 13.30. Some districts have no power at all,” Ivanivna said. During power cuts the lift in her nine-storey apartment building doesn’t work. Nor does the electric pump that supplies water.

She and her friend Liudmyla Mykolayivna are regular visitors to an “invincibility point” - a warm tent in a shopping centre car park. It offers power sockets, Starlink internet, and tea and coffee. Mykolayivna, a 68-year-old pensioner, plugged her phone into an extension cable and logged on to TikTok. As well as social media, she said she enjoyed novels, reading them in the dark with a torch.