People lining up at a bus stop in Kyiv amid recent power outages. (Photo: Vitaliia Kushmyruk/Oxfam)
On a video call with Oxfam in January, Alisa sits indoors, wearing her winter coat and mittens. By 5 p.m. local time, her office in Kyiv goes dark, and the only light in the room is her laptop screen. Alisa is a project manager at NGO ROKADA, Oxfam’s strategic partner in Ukraine. That day, and most days that week, the team had only a few hours of heat and power — just like thousands of people in buildings across Kyiv. Days earlier, Russia had carried out another attack on the capital’s energy infrastructure.
Since the invasion in 2022, Russia has been targeting Ukraine’s power stations each winter, leaving millions without electricity for weeks. But the 2026 power outages are the longest and harshest yet: Russian missiles hit an already exhausted system so often that 24/7 repairs can’t keep up. Outside, it is the coldest winter Ukrainians have seen in a decade: night-time temperatures drop to -25°C, while daytime highs hover around -15°C.
In this weather, communities rely on humanitarian support more than ever. Alisa talks about one of their projects — supporting a geriatric center in a remote town in western Ukraine.
Alisa Lahmanova, Project Manager in ROKADA. (Photo: Anna Romandash/Oxfam)
“Sometimes you can’t even find this place on the map. A street without a name, a building without an address. But this is exactly where a geriatric center is, caring for people with incurable illnesses. When the power goes out, everything stops: no transport, no logistics, no normal operations. And the kitchen staff has to cook for their patients over an open fire outside.”
However, practical means of life are not the only things taking a hit. Even communities well-equipped with generators and other resources for survival still struggle. Weeks of cold and darkness, combined with the need to work for basic things like water and light in their own homes, wear people down — leaving them frustrated, exhausted and emotionally drained.
Serhii Zhuravel, Community Engagement Specialist at TTA. (Photo courtesy of The Tenth of April)
“This is already the fourth year of war. Winter, cold, sometimes no electricity, sometimes no connection, sometimes hunger. And all of this accumulates — it really affects people. People even go out to protest. Local authorities have to explain that this is an issue of the national energy system, which operates under constant attacks."
The consequences go much deeper than discomfort and frustration with authorities. People who live alone, lack support, or spend long hours in the dark may find it extremely hard to stay optimistic, says Olena, TTA’s psychologist.
“The psychological pressure is immense. Many people have harmful, life-threatening thoughts — it’s winter, the days are darker, and there’s no electricity. When there’s shelling, your home is damaged, you lose your work, it feels like there’s no point in going on.”
Under these conditions, many are leaving cities: Kyiv alone has lost around 600,000 residents in Janurary. But many humanitarian workers stay. Explosions are terrifying, and help is slower than before, yet there are ways to keep going, shares Alyona Grom, Project Manager of Voice of Romni, another Ukrainian partner organization working with Roma communities.
“Needs are not going away. We continue to work. We look for cafés with generators. We sit next to the one functioning power socket in the corridor. Because somewhere there are people in an even worse situation right now. And they need help."
Residential neighbourhood in Kyiv during blackout. (Photo: Vitaliia Kushmyruk/Oxfam)
Alyona talks about how the team are juggling their own survival of the conditions whilst continuing to provide support to others: “On the third day without electricity and heating — we have adapted: two pairs of socks, warm clothes, and blankets. Darkness and cold have become the backdrop, and there is only one thought in my head — how to feed the children. When electricity appears, you first charge everything you can and try to manage something simple but essential for your family.”
Life in high-rise apartment buildings, heavily dependent on electricity, has become extremely difficult — for some, impossible. Indoor temperatures drop to 4-11°C; elevators and water pumps have stopped. One power station in Kyiv, which supplies more than 1,100 buildings, 72 kindergartens and 18 medical institutions, is now completely shut down.
All the power stations in Ukraine have been attacked, and no region has been spared from power cuts. In the southern city of Mykolaiv, where Oxfam’s partner organization Shchedryk operates, electricity is rationed on a strict rotation.
“Our work is a constant race. And now there’s another urgent issue — our basic needs are not secured: safety, water, electricity, cold — all of this combined with stress. How can we work and live, or plan anything at all, when we don’t know what will happen tomorrow? We still try to keep some positivity, to joke, to somehow hold on, but sometimes everyone gets overwhelmed. First of all, we need to help ourselves, because otherwise we won’t be able to help others."
As the cold season and prolonged blackouts continue, it’s the local humanitarian organisations holding the response together. For Ukrainian aid workers, the line between personal survival and professional responsibility has grown thinner as time passes by. Still, they continue showing up because the needs are around them are immediate and visible every day. Vera, Women’s Consortium of Ukraine’s (WCU) communications manager, recalls a moment that captured how people outside of Ukraine struggle to grasp their lived reality, when visiting representatives of an international donor organisation experienced a night of heavy bombardment and kept asking the same question:
“People ask us ‘How do you survive?’ How? How we survive and continue working is something books could be written about and films could be made about. We survive, we carry on together, doing the work that needs to be done.”
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