Near the front, remaining Ukrainian civilians prepare for a harsh winter

Photo: Genya Savilov Agence France-Presse Valentyna, 64, prepares a meal in the basement of a damaged residential building that she and her husband use as permanent housing, in the town of Lyman, Donetsk region, October 24, 2024

Daria Andriievska – Agence France-Presse to Lyman

Published at 10:55 a.m.

• Europe

Equipped with a heavy blanket and two electric heaters, Volodymyr was ready to brave the Ukrainian winter at home despite Russia’s destruction of Ukraine’s energy infrastructure.

But a Russian bomb hit his old Soviet apartment in Lyman, eastern Ukraine, shattering windows, deep cracks in the walls and damaging one of the two heaters.

Despite the damage and the cold weather that is expected in the coming weeks, this affable 57-year-old bearded man has no intention of abandoning his soot-covered apartment.

“It's nothing. We'll survive. We'll repair it,” he assures AFP optimistically. “The main thing for me now is to fix the windows, turn on the radiators and it will be warm again.”

This year, hundreds of Russian drone and missile attacks on Ukraine's energy grid have knocked out about half of the country's production capacity.

While the fall was mild, Ukrainians are preparing to experience the harshest winter since the start of the invasion, launched by the Kremlin on February 24, 2022.

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Photo: Genya Savilov Agence France-Presse Volodymyr, 57, in his damaged apartment in a heavily damaged residential building after a recent airstrike, in the town of Lyman, Donetsk region, October 24, 2024

Exposed to bombs

In towns and villages near the eastern front, where the enemy is advancing fastest, fighting has destroyed infrastructure.

But residents who have chosen to stay say they can hold out for the coming frigid months, even if the Russian army continues to move closer.

“We are all preparing for winter. “We survived two years and we will survive the third, don't worry,” Yuri, a 71-year-old resident of Lyman, told AFP.

His hometown, located about fifteen kilometers from the front line, was already occupied by Russia from March to September 2022, and the winters there have already been difficult.

Today, some 8,000 people remain, according to the town hall, compared to around 20,000 before the war.

As the town is only a shadow of its former self, some have chosen to live in cellars.

Viktor Kroupko has converted the basement of his building to protect himself from the cold and the shells.

“There are curtains, a stove, heating, everything is there,” explains the septuagenarian, his cap screwed on his head.

Frightened, his wife has already been hiding in the cellar for months. It took a Russian strike to damage their apartment for Viktor to decide to join her.

The old man warns, however: if the electricity goes out in the cellar, leaving him without heat, he will return to his apartment to start his stove and settle down there.

“I can't carry it here [into the basement], because I won't be able to light it,” he says. “There's nowhere to put it or the fireplace.” »

« I will die here »

Vadym Filachkin, the governor of the Donetsk region where Lyman is located, estimated that due to the hostilities, more than 130 towns and villages in this industrial territory will have no electricity this winter.

According to him, only three major towns in the region will have municipal heating: Kramatorsk, Sloviansk and Dobropillia, which are three important points for the logistics of the Ukrainian army.

Viktor Kroupko has no intention of leaving Lyman, despite the Russian advances, the winter and his wife's stroke.

The couple also have no intention of joining their daughter in Poland because, according to Viktor, he would not be able to “buy” anything there with his meager pension.

Volodymyr is even more determined: “I'm not going anywhere. I was born here and I will die here.”