Ukraine’s coming winter

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Today is Thursday, October 3rd.

Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day.

Good morning. I’m Mary Reichard.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: And I’m Myrna Brown.
Coming next on The World and Everything in It: Ukraine, with bitter winter on the way.
WORLD’s Anna Johansen Brown brings us the story of one family trying to plan ahead.

LIZA: Sometimes we are just waiting for some sirens, because we are like, okay, what are they doing right now? What are they preparing for us?

ANNA JOHANSEN BROWN: 18-year-old Liza lives in Kyiv, Ukraine. She’s a barista and a student. She spoke recently with WORLD’s Mary Muncy. We are only using Liza’s first name for safety concerns. Her father served in the Ukrainian military.

LIZA: Since the beginning of the war, I was already prepared with that, that okay with every day I can lost my father, like every day, you're living with this thoughts.

During the first few months of the war Liza waited every day for “the call.” But with each passing day she got used to the danger he faced.

LIZA: You're just thinking, ‘okay, so he'll go through that, he also stay alive with that, and everything will be okay.’

Then, about a month ago, Liza’s brother called her at work. Their father had been killed in action. He was attempting to get injured men out of occupied territory.

LIZA: There were Russians around them, and the Russians killed them… they were four in the car and like everyone died.

For about five minutes, she couldn’t speak. She couldn’t believe it. But there was no doubt when she saw her father’s body.

Since then, Liza has kept busy with work and her studies. Life is getting back to normal. But she worries as the weather turns colder.

LIZA: Even if Russia will not attack us this winter, we will still will not have enough power.

There were a few weeks last winter where Liza and her family only had power a few hours a day. It wasn’t enough time to even do the laundry. Anticipating a more challenging winter, Ukrainians are buying generators and stocking up on gas.

LIZA: I was talking to my friends, and everyone was telling, like it will be the hardest winter, like we ever had before.

Analysts like Dymtro Goriunov agree. He works with the Russia Will Pay project—tracking war damage in Ukraine. Mary Muncy asked him what makes this coming winter different than the previous ones.

GORIUNOV: In the first wave, mostly transmission capacity were targeted, which is like, well, it was bad enough, of course.

He says Russians are now targeting power generation capacities. Those are a lot more expensive and time consuming to repair than transmission capacities.

Goriunov estimates that Russia has destroyed more than 250-thousand Ukrainian buildings and that it would take nearly $160 billion dollars just to replace what they had—though rebuilding costs will be much higher.

GORIUNOV: Some assets that are well that outdated, and, you know, built like, 50 years ago.

He says in place of the outdated buildings, Ukrainians are hoping to build new, updated buildings—like schools and hospitals.

Ukranians are rebuilding…some…but they’re not publicizing how much, as they don’t want Russia to retarget those areas. Goriunov says that even if the war ended tomorrow there would be crippling bottlenecks in resources and personnel. It will take years to get close to the quality of life Ukrainians had before the war.

And then there’s the human loss. Many people haven’t been able to get an education, others have spent their time fighting instead of gaining experience in their field. And the horrors of war will haunt Ukrainians for generations.

MATVIICHUK: I think that we lose human dimension of this war in this sharp geopolitical debates about future of Russia.

Oleksandra Matviichuk is a human rights lawyer in Ukraine. She spoke with WORLD’s Leo Briceno while she was in Washington D.C. to meet with US lawmakers.

Matviichuk won the Nobel Prize in 2022 for exposing human rights abuses by Russia during the Ukraine war. She says things are especially bad in the occupied territories of Ukraine.

MATVIICHUK: People there live in grey zone. They have no tools how to defend their rights, their freedom, their property, their lives, their children, their beloved ones.

The human rights abuses Matviichuk investigates give real-life context to the larger, geopolitical struggle at play.

MATVIICHUK: When you tell human story you are being heard because people can understand the human pain regardless of nationality, citizenship, religion, ideologies, social status, and other kind of things. We are fighting for a freedom in all senses, for a freedom to be independent country, for a freedom to preserve our Ukrainian identity and for a freedom to have our democratic choice.

But in order to get there, Ukranians like Liza are going to have to survive the winter.

Last year, they had just enough power to keep one room in the house warm. Liza says she and her brother spent a lot of time together in that room.

LIZA: I don't know what I'm expecting from this winter. And like, you really don't know if Russia will attack us like tomorrow and tomorrow will be without power. So you never know when it will be.

Liza is already pulling out her sweaters and blankets…but she’s waiting a few more weeks before turning on the heat. And she hopes the power will last until at least March. She’s doing her best to prepare for the worst while staying positive.

LIZA: I'm just hoping. You know, hope will never die in my heart.

WORLD Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of WORLD Radio programming is the audio record.