The new wave of Russian missiles leaves several Ukrainian regions without light and punishes a people who are not afraid of winter
Wrapped in the darkness of a room insulated from the cold by fur coats hanging from portable coat racks, Oksana waits for the first customer of the day on a street without light in the Ukraine that resists On the same sidewalk, a constant and restless noise breaks the silence of a rear capital accustomed the last nine months to the incessant air raid sirens. Now the noise is different and comes from the generators who rest neither night nor day on the avenues of Lviv.
is what some Western leaders have described as a second line of battlesince Vladimir Putin decided subdue the Ukrainian people making him suffer. The reality of a country that decides its destiny in the trenches, but also in the cities of a geography hit based on missiles Y drones since October with the intention of making the population feel the winter ravages below zero.
The risk of a humanitarian disaster it is high if the country is unable to repair facilities – and defend them – while temperatures drop. A fear conveyed by the Ukrainian president, Volodimir Zelensky, in a recent speech, asking the people “to do anything to survive this winter“.
“Putin can take away our electricity and kill us, but won’t win the war“, sighs Oksana with cold hands from the lack of heating. A gap addressed in Bucharest by the main partners of the NATO and that has been sought to be resolved by sending generators and new economic measures. The US Administration claims to have budgeted 1.1 billion to reinforce the ukrainian power grid and the EU has promised to send another 40 generators capable of supplying one hospital each.
Without tariffs and with subsidies
However, this type of packages, in which Spain has also participated with the commitment of 14 new devicesThey do not reach the ordinary citizens of a country of 40 million inhabitants who understand their resistance to be vital so as not to force Kiev to sit down to negotiate.
Andrii has to fill Coca-Cola bottles with water in Ternopil to shower before go to work. Oleksandr He moves from Kiev with his wife, daughter, cat and two parrots to settle in his parents’ house in a town on the outskirts of the capital that is much easier to heat than his Kiev flat. Viktor and Alla rush to light the candles in the evening in Shevchenkove, trusting that the light will return.
Alternatives adopted simultaneously to the small measures of the Government that seek to favor the consumption reduction on the national network. The most obvious: eliminate the tariffs for the importation of generators and finance a percentage of the purchase.
However, there is no common rule for the country and while in northern regions, such as sumithe grant reaches the 50% of the cost of generators with a price of up to 50,000 grivnas (around 1,250 euros), in Lviv The percentage is maintained, but the maximum price is set at 30,000 (750 euros, approximately).
The money takes two months to arrive and purchases need to meet a bureaucracy He doesn’t understand temperatures. But the possibility that the Government ends up not paying, does not stop sales (multiplied by ten in recent weeks), especially when the snow and temperatures below zero that mark the thermometers in much of Ukraine.
“In our pharmacy we bought the generator for 500 euros and half was financed by the City Council, but the costs are multiplied by gasoline and nobody pays that,” he explains. maksima pharmacist from a central street in Lviv.
Dennisdependent on a reseller of Apple, has a similar opinion. In his case, using the generator for three hours costs him an extra five dollars a day. “The margins are reduced, but without electricity I cannot sell.”
impossible not to hate
Viktor was not so lucky and in mid-March the russian artillery buried under the flames carpentry business. Born in 1966, the note that asked his grandmother to “take care of the little ones” is the only living memory of a grandfather – purged by the USSR— which he did not know. She grew up poor rural ukraine and now pray for a son and son-in-law who are risking their lives in the Donbas trenches.
A life conditioned from beginning to end by the wishes of a neighboring country that he never forgave and that took him several decades to stop hate. Now, with an unknown future, he says “there’s no way to make amends,” and yearns hard for a victory he’ll never accept in part.
And while the allies have vowed to stick faithfully to its side, the help Ukraine needs goes beyond weapons. According to the United States Institute for Peace, Ukraine accumulates a deficit of 5,000 million monthly in the budgets, not including the military. By the end of the year it is expected that the public debt rises from 50% to 95% of GDP.
Aware of a possible abandonment, the town pushes some armed forces who aspire to advance in winter and Putin fails to trust in the exhaustion of a society that understood long ago that fighting is the only way out.
There are many russian lies since 2014, many deaths. Too many burials singing the National anthem who trusts in the change of fortune. “Sometimes we complain about the cold,” he confesses Kateryna Kondratenko, 71 years old, “then my daughter reminds me that they are worse at the front.” Soldiers without uniform in a Ukraine with many fronts far from the trench.