HUMANITARIAN organisations have appealed for continued support for Ukraine, as Russian missile and drone attacks — the heaviest in the four-year war — shut down schools and transport in Kyiv and drove up to 600,000 people out of the city.
“Without electricity, it’s difficult but manageable — but when heating and water supplies don’t work, it’s almost unbearable,” a manager of the charity Caritas-Spes, Olena Voichyk, said.
“Russia has been launching unprecedented attacks for weeks, using the cold as a weapon to wear down the population — obviously calculating that those whose basic needs can’t be met will give up more quickly.”
The aid worker spoke as trilateral talks in Abu Dhabi between Ukraine, Russia, and the United States, the first since the war began, ended without a breakthrough, and as Ukraine’s already badly damaged energy infrastructure was targeted in further mass strikes.
Ms Voichyk told Austria’s Kathpress agency that one fifth of Kyiv’s population had now sought refuge with relatives in other towns to escape the lack of power and heating. It was unlikely that the systems would be repaired before next summer.
The Primate of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (UGCC), Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk, said that the city had faced a “hellish night” on Saturday, when 12 massive anti-ship missiles left 1.2 million homes without electricity.
Ukraine faced a “superhuman struggle for humanity, light and warmth”, he said, while “heavy battles” continued against invading forces along its eastern front line. He paid tribute to the “wave of solidarity” still being shown towards the country abroad.
“These satanic blows are intended to bring us to our knees, demoralise, and discourage us — but their effect is completely contrary, since we are becoming stronger and rallying even more,” Archbishop Shevchuk told a congregation in the Cathedral of the Resurrection, Kiev, on Sunday.
“Believers are seeing with spiritual eyes where Jesus is moving. Their attention and prayer follow where God the teacher is leading, not the presidents and the powerful of this world.”
The United Nations is running a Winter Response Plan for Ukraine, in which more than £200-million-worth of life-saving aid will be delivered by the end of March.
Churches across Europe have organised aid collections, with funds earmarked for high-power generators and boilers by dioceses in Poland.
In Rome, the Prefect of the Vatican Dicastery for the Service of Charity, Cardinal Konrad Krajewski, told journalists that he had experienced “a nightmare” during several winter visits to Kyiv. He feared that concern for Ukraine was waning as international attention switched to other conflicts.
In an address on Sunday, the Pope said that the “continuous attacks” had left “entire populations exposed to the cold of winter”, and was widening “the rift between peoples”, while pushing back any “opportunity for a just and lasting peace”.
In an appeal this month, the Council of Churches and Religious Organisations in Ukraine said that Russia had a “special responsibility to protect peace” as a permanent member of the UN Security Council, but was instead pursuing “the genocide of the Ukrainian people” by leaving millions of civilians, including women, children, and the elderly, in freezing temperatures without heating and drinking water.