'We'll Survive': Ukrainians on Front Brace for Hard Winter

Before the strike on his neighbourhood in eastern Ukraine, Volodymyr had planned to brave what promises to be the worst winter of the war yet with just a heavy blanket and two electric heaters.

Then a Russian bomb struck, ripping open the windows of the sitting room in his Soviet-era apartment, tearing a hole in the wall and damaging one of just two heaters.

Still, the 57-year-old, who was born and raised and has lived his whole life so far in the town of Lyman, said he had no plans to sit out the freezing winter somewhere better prepared or less dangerous.

"It's nothing. We'll survive. We'll fix it. We'll do it little by little. The main thing for me now is to board up the windows, turn on the heaters and it will be warm again," he told AFP.

Ukraine is bracing for the most difficult winter year of the Russian invasion, launched by the Kremlin in February 2022.

This year, waves of drone and missile attacks on the Ukrainian power grid by Russian forces have knocked out around half of the country's generation capacity, compared to one year earlier.

Officials in Kyiv and analysts have predicted the damage will take millions of dollars and potentially years to repair.

- 'Preparing for winter' -

In towns and villages near the front line, where Russian forces are advancing, the daily grind of fighting has destroyed the mainly ageing Soviet-era infrastructure that kept residents warm in icy winter months.

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Surrounded by forests of pine, Lyman had around 20,000 residents before the invasion and was briefly occupied by Russian forces. Authorities say the current population is now less than half that.

Yuri, another of those remaining, said residents had grown used to winters at war.

"We are all preparing for winter. We have survived two years and will survive the third, don't worry," the 71-year-old told AFP, declining to give his last name.

Another resident of Lyman has prepared for winter and Russian attacks by helping to fit out his building's basement.

"There are curtains. Everything is curtained. There's a stove, a heater -- everything is there," said Viktor Krupko, 71.

If the electricity that powers the basement heaters shuts off, Krupko said he would climb to his fifth-floor apartment -- vulnerable to repeat Russian attacks -- and fire up the stove he has there.

"You can't bring it down here and you can't heat it here. There's nowhere to put it, nowhere to bring the chimney out," he said.

He decided to move to the basement after an earlier strike damaged his home. His wife has been living in the basement already for months.

"People came out, of course, and that's it. Nobody lives here, only two grandmothers lived here," he said.

- 'Born here, I'll die here' -

The governor of the Donetsk region Vadym Filashkin has said that due to hostilities, more than 130 towns or villages in the industrial territory will have no electricity this winter.

Filashkin said only three large towns in the region, which the Kremlin already claimed to have annexed in 2022, will have heating: Kramatorsk, Sloviansk and Dobropillia.

Despite the threat of more Russian attacks, and the fact his wife earlier suffered a stroke, Krupko has no intention of leaving Lyman, no matter how cold or miserable it gets this winter.

His daughter moved to neighbouring Poland, which is among the European Union countries that export electricity to Ukraine, but he is concerned about how far his meagre pension would get him there.

"What will I buy with it?" he said.

Volodymyr, the 57-year-old who earlier had a narrow brush with death, was more fatalistic, describing his determination to stay in the war-battered town.

"I'm not going anywhere," he told AFP. "I was born here and I'm going to die here."