Ukraine soldiers on despite blackouts, hardships as it enters third winter of war

Despite winter’s additional difficulties, Grushetskyi said by and large Ukrainians are coping well.

“Given it’s our third winter with this terrorist state’s full-scale invasion, people have actually adapted,” he said. He said it is common to rely on fuel-powered generators and big rechargeable batteries, often known as accumulators, to keep elevators running, homes warmed and businesses open.

He said about 60% of Ukrainians say they expect it to be a normal winter while 8% see their conditions this winter as dire.

“People feel it, people suffer,” he said. “But people do not say: ‘We should sign a peace deal just to have electricity.’ People say it’s much better to have no electricity but continue resisting Russian aggression.”

He added: “People are irritated, but they hate Russia in the first place. And in the second place, they criticize the West.”

He said criticism of the West is common because Ukrainians feel that the Unites States and its European allies are holding back on supplying the air defenses and weapons Kyiv needs to adequately fight Russia.

The war has caused a diaspora too.

The U.N. estimates that as of October, 6.7 million Ukrainians were living as refugees, 92% of them in Europe.

At the same time, about 3.7 million Ukrainians displaced from their homes due to the war were scattered around Ukraine, U.N. figures show. Of those, between 78,000 and 100,000 people were considered very vulnerable and housed in about 1,800 communal sites around the country, the U.N. said. University dormitories, trade union buildings and other structures have been turned into housing for those dispossessed by the war.

Grushetskyi said about 67% of internally displaced Ukrainians rent their own apartments, 20% live with friends and family, 5% live in homes they bought and 8% live in community shelters.

He said initially many people displaced by the war were offered housing in rural areas, but due to a lack of work in the countryside they chose to move into urban areas. The employment rate among the displaced has risen from 37% in 2022 to 56% today, he said. Labor shortages are acute in Ukraine and it appears work is plentiful.

In the great upheaval and mass exodus caused by the war, Grushetskyi said Ukrainians from different parts of the country have gotten to know each other better and in turn they’ve softened regional biases they once harbored.

“There has been increased cohesion inside Ukrainian society,” he said.

It’s hard to know what Ukraine’s total population is because the last census was done in 2001. Demographers estimate the total population at about 35 million with about 5 million people living in Ukrainian territory occupied by Russian forces.

The war has caused massive infrastructure damage. By the end of 2023, $152 billion worth of damage had been inflicted on Ukraine and Russia, according to U.N. figures. The brunt of the destruction has been to housing, transport, commerce, industry, agriculture and energy sectors.

The hardest-hit areas are Kyiv, the capital, and those regions along the front lines, namely Kharkiv, Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson. About 10% of Ukraine’s housing stock has been damaged or destroyed.

At least 365 schools have been completely destroyed and more than 3,400 others damaged, according to Ukraine’s education ministry in a report.

Still, schools remain open even close to the front lines. In Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, six underground subway stations have been turned into schools.

“So, there’s about at least 6,000 children in the city of Kharkiv that are able to physically go to school for a few hours a week,” Schmale said.

Health care facilities and workers have come under attack too, causing 197 deaths and 670 injuries by November this year, according to the World Health Organization.

By December 2023, the war’s toll on the economy and costs associated with the conflict, such as picking up all the rubble, was valued at $499 billion, a World Bank report estimated. New damage assessments for the past year of fighting have not yet been released.

Since January 2022, the U.N. Human Rights Office has documented 12,168 civilian deaths have been documented.

The number of soldier deaths and casualties on the two warring sides remain far from certain and there are wildly different assessments. Official counts from either side are highly unlikely to be accurate, but experts believe the war has left more than 1 million soldiers killed and wounded, making it by far the deadliest war in Europe since World War II.

Ukraine’s defense ministry claims 770,420 Russian soldiers have been killed or wounded and Russia’s defense ministry claims close to 1 million Ukrainian soldiers have been killed and wounded.

Courthouse News reporter Cain Burdeau is based in the European Union.

Follow @cainburdeau