As promised, this week I continue answering your questions on Ukraine (a couple of the first answers were posted as updates to my original post).
First of all, thank you for the enormous support expressed in the comments. That is really heartwarming.
So far, I have answered a couple of dozen of questions, and I will expand and recycle some of the answers as separate posts, as kindly advised by some of the readers.
I had some learning issues with Daily Kos publication mechanics yesterday, so there was some delay and this is my second try at writing this post.
A question from moeborg:
I would like to ask how is the general mood in the population now? How is the energy and heating situation? Has the winter been very hard? How are peoples spirits holding up? I worry that people are beginning to be worn down?
The general mood is quite resilient — we believe in victory and are just grinding towards it — both personally and collectively.
For an outsider, Kyiv may look surprisingly normal these days.
Taken separately from the suburbs where the fighting took place last spring, there was very little physical damage to the city. Most of the in-city fortifications have been removed by autumn. Unless you are not paying attention to small details, you will see just normal city life. People going to work, children going to school. Traffic jams. Most of the shops, restaurants, bars, cinemas, theatres, and hotels work.
There is an occasional air raid sirene, but nobody pays much attention – unless that is a “serious” attack. There is a night curfew between 23:00 and 5:00.
In fact, some foreigners recommend visiting Kyiv and Ukraine right now - to see the history in the making and as an act of moral and economic support of Ukraine.
I personally feel safe most of the time.
The electricity was on and off for about three months from October to January. You could have from 2 to 12 hours of electricity during a day, depending on the time that has passed since the latest Russian missile attack and where you live in the city. Quite often, those two hours were at night.
The heating and water supply worked almost uninterrupted. The same was for the gas supply, which was particularly useful if you had a gas stove.
As of today, we have happily enjoyed about two weeks with a full uninterrupted electricity supply — but that is mostly because russia has not targeted specifically the electricity grid since the beginning of January. We even have streetlights on at night!
Yes, the winter was quite hard — especially the first month — until we were able to procure the necessary diesel generators to power the most critical needs, and people adapted and adjusted to the situation.
Almost every family with an electric stove has a small tourist gas stove now, a lamp powered by an accumulator, etc. The wealthier bought Ecoflows or similar big batteries. The demand for paper and electronic books surged.
(Some Russian commentator tried to joke that Ukraine became a “country of generators” – being a symbol of an industrially backward nation. Ukrainians responded that a country of generators will always prevail over a country of degenerates)
Generally, there was more stress, more failed plans and schedules, and more disconnection (internet and telephone cellular networks are also powered by electricity). People were stuck in elevators, more traffic accidents happened (dark streets) etc. All the fridges in supermarkets and at home went off, so no frozen food was available for some time. Trams and trolleybuses didn’t work for several days.
The critical infrastructure (water, heating, gas, hospitals, police, petrol stations etc.) was pre-equipped with diesel generators and generally stayed online. The fact that the winter was quite mild this year helped as well.
Overall, that was a severe disruption of life and business, but nothing catastrophic.
There were a lot of funny and heartwarming and inspiring moments as well. Teachers teaching students from petrol stations, neighbours sharing candles with each other, people working at night to catch the electricity time, shopping malls and other businesses with powerful generators offering free wi-fi and phone charging. A whole industry of DIY-battery making emerged. Unfortunately, this sometimes resulted in fires.
The economic damage to the energy industry was enormous. Ukraine used to be an exporter of electricity to Europe, and it became an importer now. The national economy has been slowed down significantly - again. The electricity prices for businesses already grew about 30% and are expected to grow further; prices for households were fixed, but are also expected to grow soon.
Ukraine has got a new class of heroes: the electricity and utilities network repair workers. Of course, the Ukrainian mail service commemorated this feat with a post stamp:
That is for Kyiv and similar cities. For frontline cities like Nikopol or Kherson and others, it was tougher — in many cities, the utility networks were badly damaged and beyond repair. Or it just does not make sense or can’t be accessed by the repair brigades due to the constant shelling. Mykolaiv had all their water system corroded because they were forced to pump salt sea water when Russians bombed their Dnipro fresh water supply back in the spring of 2022.
The spirits:
Of course, people wear down. Still, it helps that you must not be under strain all the time — as long as you have some place to live and at least some job.
Unless you live under the russian occupation or near the front line, as a civilian you can take a vacation; women and kids can travel to Europe and spend some time in complete safety and with reasonable comfort, and sometimes you can change jobs.
You can meet friends and family and get basic medical help, you can pursue sports or hobbies or join the war effort as a part-time volunteer. There is some psychological help available for free from various international organizations.
Things are worse if you lost your home and became an internally displaced person, which in most cases also means you have lost your job. But there are many local and international support programs so that you will have at least something to eat and something to wear.
Even worse if you were severely wounded or lost someone — that is hell.
Still, people try to support each other, and there is a huge international humanitarian effort to keep the most vulnerable, including small kids, afloat.
Also this:
A question from MLKaplan:
Has the current population of Kyiv changed dramatically with the onset of the war? Have a lot of internal refugees settled into the city?
“Before the invasion, there were 3.8 million people, in March - less than one million, in July - 2-2.5 million, now 3.6 million. 300,000 of them are registered refugees from other parts of the country”. — Mayor Klytchko, December 2022.
On a final note, Kyiv is the capital and still the biggest and wealthiest city in the country. It has much more resources and government attention to sustain normal operations than other cities. We probably have the best air defence available.
Still, also this: "As for today – besides hope in victory, national pride, solidarity and compassion, which you see on the surface – one of the prevailing feelings among Ukrainians is guilt that we are not doing enough. In non-frontline towns and in Kyiv, life has returned to a kind of normal. We are preoccupied with the thoughts of those who live under constant shelling or occupation. Those who are not in the army think of those who must fight daily; soldiers who survive think of the fallen. Those who left the country feel guilty about those who stayed"
I can attest that there is a constant thought and feeling about our fellow Ukrainians who are in much harder and worse conditions now. Wherever we start complaining to each other about something, there is always a moment when someone says something like “this is nothing to what our guys are going through right now at the front” – and everyone agrees.
Bonus track:
"A Year" - one of the latest documentaries about the war by Dmytro Komarov.
The movie is largely focusing on the first days and weeks of Russia's second war in Ukraine but also covers the whole year until now. It is a mix of exclusive interviews with Ukrainian military and government leadership, including president Zelensky, and Komarov's own war reporting and documentation. He is very good at picking small episodes and details that give a specific taste of the moment. There are two parts to it, and it has good English subtitles (I liked mostly the first part).