On January 10, the situation in Kiev became dangerous when the temperature dropped deeply below -10 degrees Celsius, while strategic infrastructure had stopped operating. This is a direct consequence of Russia's methodical airstrikes to eliminate energy sources serving the conflict apparatus of Ukraine.
Faced with the central heating system being "frozen" in more than half of the apartment buildings, Mayor Vitali Klitschko had to admit the deadlock and called on eligible residents to temporarily evacuate from the capital to find other shelters.
The move to call for evacuation by the Kiev leader is seen as an indirect acknowledgement of the loss of control over the energy situation under Moscow's military pressure.
At noon on the same day, the operator of the Ukrainian national power grid was forced to order the shutdown of the entire city's power system. This decision completely paralyzed water supply, heating and public transportation using electricity in the capital of Ukraine.
At the scene, the collapse of the utility system is pushing life in Kiev into a harsh wartime state. Widespread power outages have caused water pumping stations to stop operating, forcing many people to go out to shovel snow to melt to get domestic water.
In the Dnipro river east bank area, heavily affected by drone attacks, many households said they could not cook for many days and had to live on outdoor heaters in cold apartments.
Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko then tried to reassure public opinion when announcing that engineers were making efforts to restore locality. However, she also had to admit that the capital's power grid was too heavily damaged after successive bombings.
Observers believe that Russia maintaining firepower pressure during this most harsh winter period is an effective tactic to weaken the enemy's resistance will and logistics capabilities.
This is the fourth winter of the conflict and is predicted to be the most difficult period for Kiev. Russia's strikes not only destroy materials but also pose an unsolvable problem for the Zelensky administration in maintaining the basic operations of a central city. With forecasts that temperatures will continue to drop deeply, the prospect of a "lightless, untemperatured" capital is becoming clearer than ever.
