Putin’s Campaign To Cripple Ukraine’s Energy Infrastructure Has Only Strengthened Their Resolve
Four years after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, parts of Kyiv are locked in a different kind of battlefield — one without tanks in the streets, but with cold apartments, powerless neighborhoods, and families lining up for hot soup just to feel their hands again.
Entire districts of the capital have been without consistent heat, electricity, or hot water for weeks. Russia’s sustained strikes on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure have left thousands navigating winter in near darkness. The strategy is clear: break civilian morale, strain the government, and force concessions at the negotiating table.
But on the ground, the effect appears to be something else entirely.
“If someone wants to make us give up, we will not give up because there will be no respect for us,” said 48-year-old Olha Sukhobok as she waited for a bowl of stew handed out by World Central Kitchen volunteers. Her words echo a broader sentiment expressed by more than a dozen Kyiv residents interviewed in recent days: freezing is preferable to surrender.
Military historians have a term for what Moscow may be miscalculating — the failure to win “hearts and minds.” Strategic bombing campaigns aimed at civilian infrastructure have historically struggled to produce capitulation. Instead, they often harden resolve. Institute for the Study of War analyst George Barros notes that empirical research shows such campaigns tend to reinforce civilian resistance rather than erode it.
The daily reality, however, is punishing. Tetiana Zamrii, 35, originally from Donetsk, has adapted to what she calls a “new normal.” She lights candles when the power cuts out, layers clothing, and plugs a small heater into a power bank beside her bed. She boils water on a gas stove to bathe. Her hairless cat, Lola, wears a sweater against the cold.
Across Kyiv, heated tents provide temporary refuge. Inside, children’s books and toys sit on tables while families warm themselves. These small “hacks,” as residents call them, are acts of quiet endurance in a city learning to function without certainty.
Diplomacy looms in the background. Some voices abroad frame the war as a territorial dispute that could be resolved through compromise. But for Ukrainians like Zamrii, territory is inseparable from people. Roughly 15% of the Donbas remains under Ukrainian control, and hundreds of thousands of citizens live there.
“They think that part of our country isn’t necessary — but all of our people are on it,” she said.
Others view the energy strikes not merely as pressure tactics but as attempts to erase national identity. Anatoliy, 67, waiting in line for soup, described it as a “holod-omor,” a grim wordplay linking today’s cold to the Holodomor famine inflicted under Stalin. Since February 24, 2022, roughly 15,000 Ukrainian civilians have been killed. At least ten have reportedly frozen to death during energy blackouts.
Yet when asked whether Russia’s strategy will work, Anatoliy did not hesitate. “Russians wanted to take care of it within three days; it’s been four years,” he said. “We are fighting, we are together.”
In Kyiv’s darkened apartments and candlelit kitchens, the message is consistent: the lights may go out, but surrender remains off the table.