“This is the hardest winter in Sloviansk in all the years of the war,” says Nikolai Karpitsky. He has spent all four years of the war in this frontline city. Specially for PostPravda.Info, he tells how a resident of Sloviansk endures the cold, which the enemy uses as a weapon.
Winter in Sloviansk: Cold as a Weapon
Russia uses not only bombs and drones against Ukrainian civilians, but also cold. Objectively, shelling is more dangerous than cold, yet psychologically cold is harder to endure. You eventually get used to the danger of dying at any moment: at first, when explosions go off nearby, it is deeply unsettling, but later you stop reacting. Cold, however, is something you can never get used to.
I live close to the front line, and here cold is compounded by another factor that breaks people—uncertainty. Everyone experiences it differently; I can only speak from my own experience.
January was bitterly cold. As the frost set in, Russia began deliberately striking Ukraine’s energy system, trying to freeze the country. The main blow fell on Kyiv. People in high-rise apartment buildings without electricity find themselves trapped: there is no light, no water, it is impossible to use the toilet properly, and the building gradually freezes through. Where utility services relied on luck and did not drain the water from the radiators, pipes burst.
While the enemy’s attention was focused on the capital, things were easier in Sloviansk, where I live—power outages were rare and short-lived. If electricity had been cut the way it was in Kyiv, my house would not have survived.
Typical private houses in Ukraine are not designed for severe cold, and when they were built, no one imagined the possibility of war. I live in one such house myself. The kitchen is in an extension, separate from the main building; the gas boiler that supplies heat to the house is located there as well, with a pipe connecting the two structures. If the electric motor stops, the water will stop circulating, and the house will freeze very quickly.
At the end of January there was a thaw, but at the market people anxiously discussed the abnormal February frosts expected the following week. And then Trump said he had asked Putin to suspend strikes on energy infrastructure for a week because it was very cold. It sounded like fantasy, but one desperately wanted to believe it—there was no “Plan B” for a prolonged power outage.
Putin waited for the peak of the frost, and on February 3 the Russian army struck with everything it had managed to accumulate during the days of the “truce”: according to Zelensky, 32 ballistic missiles, 11 other missiles, 28 cruise missiles, and 450 attack drones. Trump confirmed that Putin had kept his promise—because, as he put it, that was exactly what the agreement had been.
Without Heating at Minus Fifteen
The twenty-four hours from February 3 to 4 were the hardest for me in the entire war. At the same time, they reflected—like a mirror—my perception of the war over all four years. The electricity went out during the day, as suddenly as the invasion began on February 24, 2022. On the one hand, you understand that this can happen; on the other, it is psychologically impossible to imagine it as reality. And when it does happen, you find yourself in a completely different reality for which you are unprepared—whether it is war or a power outage at –15°C.
The first reaction is hope that it won’t last long. The house is still holding heat; the soup has been cooked. The same hope existed in the first days of the invasion: we just need to hold out for three days… ten days… and then a miracle will happen—Western aid, a counteroffensive, Russia will retreat. But the war goes on, and resources are gradually depleted.
Night falls, there is still no electricity, and it becomes clear that something serious has happened. The most tormenting thing is uncertainty. I live on the outskirts of the city and find myself in complete informational isolation. I don’t know whether this is a local accident or a global one. Perhaps the electricity will come back in the next second—or perhaps never. I had the same feeling during our counteroffensive in the autumn of 2022: you hope the war will end with a quick victory, but it is just as likely to drag on indefinitely.
You want to fall asleep and wake up when the lights are back on. I fell asleep and woke up many times, and each time it grew colder. I had to take another blanket and two throws. In the morning, I put on a fifth sweater and a jacket and walk around the house to warm up. The frost will last a few more days—it’s impossible to hold out without electricity until the thaw. This is what a war of attrition looks like: who will run out first—the aggressor or us? Russia has incomparably greater resources and a constant influx of volunteers ready to kill us for money.
I left the refrigerator door wide open—let the cold in the house be of at least some use. I heat the soup over a candle. The pot gives off heat to the room almost as quickly as it receives it, but after two hours the soup is warm at last. While I pace back and forth around the room, the cold is still bearable, but with each hour it gets worse. If the temperature in the house drops below freezing, the radiators will burst, and then it will make no difference whether you are inside the house or outside.
There has been no electricity for almost a day, and the uncertainty presses harder and harder. Perhaps the pipe outside has already frozen through… My mind is torn between the hope that a light bulb will come on any second and my imagination drawing an apocalyptic picture of war in which there is no longer any hope of survival. Now the main task is not so much to wait for the electricity as to preserve inner calm. To do that, I detach myself from the expectation of the “next moment” and focus on what is “here and now.”
Hatred creeps up toward everyone who supported Putin, especially toward my Russian acquaintances. If I let hatred inside me, I will simply dissolve in it. To distance myself from hatred, I look for support within myself, in the moment of the “here and now.” No matter how terrifying life may be, each concrete moment of life has value in itself, and I strive to live it fully—even if in the next moment I might die in my own home from a drone or a bomb. Along with hatred, I let go of expectations and of the picture of reality that my imagination draws.
Why is it impossible to get used to the cold? I can, by inertia, go about my daily business while bombs are falling, but to warm up I have to make additional efforts. I walk around the room to keep warm, but how long can I do that—one day, two? Cold cannot be endured by inertia.
By inertia, one can carry on with everyday tasks even in moments of danger, as long as those moments do not require a struggle for survival. This is how habituation to war arises. Analysts and publicists who paint an optimistic picture of future Russian failures and Ukrainian successes contribute to this habituation. In the first year of the war, this supported us and helped mobilize our mental strength. But war has another side as well: sooner or later it reaches everyone, forcing them to fight for their own life. It is impossible to get used to this, just as it is impossible to get used to the cold, because constant effort is required, and human mental resources are limited.
Read also on PostPravda.Info: Life Under Shelling. Donbas 2014–2025. An Eyewitness’s Notes
Goal-Setting: To Survive Together with Ukraine
What does it mean to live in the moment of the “here and now”? If you perceive this moment from within the flow of emotional experiences, no amount of strength will be enough to endure what every single moment of war brings. One can live it fully only by relying on goal-setting that depends neither on emotional states nor on external circumstances. Only this reveals awareness of one’s own existence in the moment of the “here and now,” and this existence has intrinsic value. From this follows the volition —to live this moment fully despite the cold, the war, and the danger of dying the next minute. This volition is embodied in the goal-setting of surviving in spite of everything. But not surviving at the expense of others—surviving together with others. In wartime, this means surviving together with Ukraine, regardless of how strong the enemy is.
This goal-setting gives strength and endows life with meaning. Even when there is no electricity or internet, when it is impossible to turn on a laptop and I am forced to walk around the room to keep warm, I can still do something for Ukraine—for example, compose in my head the texts of future publications.
Electricity was restored after a day. The pipes froze, but not completely—the water barely flows through them, so the house does not warm up. It is not yet so hard for me. It is much harder for people with elderly relatives and children trapped in high-rise buildings. More frosts and new power outages lie ahead. The struggle continues.
Read also on PostPravda.Info: The Existential Experience of War. From the series “War in Human Life”
