Russian strikes and approaching winter force many in Kyiv to pack bags and flee

ByPaul Adams Diplomatic correspondent, in Kyiv.

Key points

• Mariia's children, four-year-old Artur and Kira, who's two, were both born after Russia's full-scale invasion in 2022.
• "Everything changed in late August and the beginning of September, when Kyiv started being attacked around the clock, " she remarked.
• "People are thinking about a combination of stress factors, " Evgeniya Blyznyuk, Gradus's founder and CEO, informed us.
• "It was a very difficult winter last year in Kyiv, " notes mother of two Mariia Shostak.
• Last winter, Iryna, who asked us not to employ her surname, states her three-year-old daughter Polina discovered it hard to cope.

As Russia's attacks on Ukraine's cities intensify and autumn's cooler temperatures hint at another tough winter to come, Ukrainians are wrestling with how to meet the twin challenges ahead: Russian drone and missile strikes and the biting cold.

"It was a very difficult winter last year in Kyiv, " notes mother of two Mariia Shostak. This person is now packing her bags and leaving her small flat.

With prolonged periods of sub-zero temperatures and frequent power cuts brought regarding by Russia's attack on the country's power grid, last winter was one of the hardest so far.

"There were some days and weeks that were unbearable. I began thinking I'm not going through another winter like this."

Mariia is not even waiting for winter. Russia's latest assaults on the capital have forced her hand.

"Earlier, the drones and missiles were intercepted somewhere on the outskirts. Now it was happening in the centre, right above our heads."

After weeks of escalating Russian attacks. It by the end of September had included petrol stations, power plants and key bridges over the Dnipro river, Kyiv mayor Vitaly Klitschko remarked the city was facing a "very dramatic situation". The attacks, he remarked, were "tearing Kyiv apart".

Unwilling to subject them to another miserable, dangerous winter, she's taking them abroad. They plan to spend the winter in Hurghada, on Egypt's Red Sea coast. It's cheaper than Europe, Mariia explains, and warmer too. "I don't feel safe in Ukraine in any way, " she notes.

Polls show that plenty of Ukrainians are feeling the same way, even if not everyone has yet produced such a radical decision.

While 25% were undecided, a September survey by the Gradus research firm identified that 40% of Ukrainians were considering relocating if living conditions continued to deteriorate; 35% noted they would not move elsewhere.

"People are thinking about a combination of stress factors, " Evgeniya Blyznyuk, Gradus's founder and CEO, informed us. "Not just regarding electricity and blackouts like last winter. Russians are targeting major logistics centres. It means that the population is worrying concerning products, regarding food during the winter."

Russia's recent attacks on Kyiv's bridges, petrol stations and schools have rose the sense of danger and foreboding. For families with young children, the situation feels especially urgent.

"Sometimes we didn't have heating for weeks and the temperature inside the apartment was zero or five degrees, " she tells us. "So being here with a little child that is sick all the time was not OK." The family's recent experiences have only compounded Polina's difficulties. "We had two missile attacks this year, " Iryna notes.

Notably, the first explosion, in early June, blew out a number of windows in the family's home on the north-western edge of Kyiv. After some of the damage had been repaired, a second blast, close to the foot of their 10-storey apartment block, propelled a wave of earth into the flat, forcing the family to move into temporary accommodation, a month afterwards.

Polina's health has deteriorated. She suffers from extreme anxiety. It has brought on bouts of incontinence, vomiting and uncontrollable shaking.

"Now we have this neurological problem with her so that's the reason we're thinking about leaving, " Iryna notes. "There are new symptoms after each shelling."

Iryna, whose husband is in the army, has not yet decided where to go. Her work with an international NGO may allow her to work remotely from Poland.

"Our president says that it is better to leave Kyiv because this is target number one, " she notes.

For other Kyiv residents, the solution lies closer to home: in the vast open spaces of Ukraine's countryside.

Olena Konoplia tells us she spent weeks looking for a suitable location before settling on a cottage in a rural community two hours outside the capital.

"I decided the better option will be a little village without any factories, any and any railway stations, " Olena explains. "Everything that can be a Russian target."

On the day we visited, Olena was busy ferrying supplies to the house and supervising the installation of a new door.

In keeping with Ukrainian tradition, a priest has already been around to bless her new home.

Meanwhile, the cottage has gas-powered convection heaters, but in an adjacent barn a stack of firewood will support to keep Olena warm in the event of power cuts. She has already installed high-speed internet, necessary for her work at a Kyiv-based charitable foundation.

At a time when air raid sirens sound constantly in Kyiv and explosions can be heard almost every day, the peace and quiet of the village is what Olena notes she needs most.

"After several nights here, when I can sleep, just sleep, without any explosions, without any sirens, I feel better, " she notes. "I can work, write my articles, I feel good." Olena's elderly mother will shortly be joining her.

"She lives in a pretty dangerous district in Kyiv and it's harmful for her health, " she explains.

Of course, not everyone can afford a cottage in the countryside or a months-long trip abroad.

Most Kyiv residents will do what they can to survive another tough winter in the capital, just as they have before.

Notably, the authorities are taking steps to prepare. Some of Kyiv's most vulnerable citizens – the elderly and women with young children – are being offered places in converted sanatoriums and rehabilitation centres in the city's forested outskirts.

Meanwhile, a network of around 15 small-scale power plants has been constructed around the city over the past 18 months in a bid to shore up Kyiv's battered power grid.

Notably, the plants, constructed in fortified bunkers and protected from drone attack by massive steel cages, are each capable of providing electricity and heat to a number of hundred of the city's high-rise apartment blocks.

But with energy firms already talking concerning scheduled power cuts and supermarkets experiencing periodic shortages of some goods, the pressures to leave are growing.

Evgeniya Blyznyuk notes she does not expect to see a mass exodus from the capital and states most individuals have yet to produce up their minds, reluctant to jeopardise their jobs or take children out of school. "They will postpone it until conditions become really unliveable, " she notes.

Taken together, the developments around russian strikes and approaching winter force many in Kyiv to pack bags point to a situation that is still moving, and the coming days should bring more clarity.