Russia Knocked Out the Heat. So She Slept in a Tent on Her Bed.

Svitlana Zinovieva pitched a tent on her bed after a Russian missile struck the boiler that heats her apartment block in Kyiv. With the power out and her refrigerator useless, the glassed-in balcony became a freezer; she warmed water on the stove, filled empty wine bottles and placed them inside the tent.

"It’s really very cozy," she said. The bitter chill of the coldest winter in a decade seeped into homes across the city as waves of strikes on energy infrastructure left about 1,400 apartment buildings without heat and sent overnight temperatures down to minus 20 Celsius.

The attacks, observers say, are intended not only to disrupt services but also to cripple the economy and demoralize the population; similar tactics were used in 2006 and 2010 and again after the 2022 invasion. Residents improvised to stay warm and keep services running.

Ukraine, Kyiv

russia, kyiv, missile strike, energy infrastructure, power outage, heating outages, apartment buildings, coldest winter, residents, tent shelter