Ukraine braces for infrastructure attacks as winter looms
STORY: In an abandoned tower block damaged by Russian shelling in Ukraine's Kharkiv, Olga Kobzar plans to tough out winter for as long as she is able.
The 70-year-old lives alone and has no electricity or water. She lights the gas stove in her kitchen for warmth.
The temperature can fall to -4 Fahrenheit (-20 Celsius).
Olga is the last remaining inhabitant of her tower block in the devastated Saltivka district, around 20 miles from the Russian border.
"I plan to stay for as long as I can. It will be freezing cold and all that. I may stay longer, with some friends possibly. The only important thing is that my son comes back from the front healthy and alive. I don’t need anything else."
The seven-month-old war has wrought huge damage to the energy network and to residential areas in swathes of Ukraine.
Officials fear Moscow could deliberately attack critical infrastructure when the frost sets in.
They are urging people to stock up on everything from firewood to electric generators ahead of unpredictable disruptions.
Residential areas in cities are centrally heated by power stations fueled by natural gas.
But heating apartment blocks with smashed windows and walls is dangerous because the pipes could freeze and wreck the local system.
Nearby, local priest Viacheslav Koyun is boarding up broken windows for elderly neighbors so the heating can be turned on.
"Most are worried, many have left – there are literally about 5 people in each building section, mostly pensioners. I stayed and didn’t leave, because I can’t leave my building and the pensioners. It wouldn’t be right."
If there are disruptions to the heating system, electricity supplies would become vital. Many have purchased electric-powered heaters.
But the electricity network could be overwhelmed if people use their own heating equipment en masse, experts say.
Energy officials are declining to disclose detailed data about the state of infrastructure, citing wartime secrecy. And possibly so as not to stir panic.
But in a rare disclosure on Saturday (October 1), energy officials said two power sub-stations in an undisclosed southern location were "completely destroyed" by Russian attacks in late September.
