Ukrainians prepare for winter – and possibility of nuclear war – as Putin imposes martial law

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Like a lot of Ukrainians, Khrystyna Miskeoych keeps some extra food and water on hand in her home just in case of an emergency. But, as Russia intensifies its bombing raids on civilian targets and raises the spectre of a nuclear strike, Ms. Miskeoych’s preparedness has become more extensive.

She’s now keeping a stash of iodine pills to protect against radiation, and she bought a hat, goggles, shoe coverings and an extra-thick raincoat to serve as a makeshift hazmat suit. And, just for good measure, she recently watched a documentary on how people in Hiroshima survived the atomic bomb. “If they can survive, maybe we can too,” said Ms. Miskeoych, a 22-year-old university student in Lviv.

While a nuclear attack remains an outside possibility, Russia’s ramped-up campaign to destroy power, water and heating services across Ukraine has forced Ukrainians to start preparing for what could be a long, dark winter. Many city dwellers have started looking for cottages in the countryside, where firewood is plentiful. Others have been stocking up on candles and calculating how long they can go without electricity.

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“It’s not something we ever had to consider before,” said Andriy Shestak, a vice-dean at the Ukrainian Catholic University in Lviv. Mr. Shestak and other university officials have spent much of the past week figuring out how long the four generators they’ve bought can maintain at least some power to UCU’s three locations. Their best guess is 10 hours, he said.

Russian forces kept up their attacks on Wednesday, with missile strikes on many cities. The targets included Kyiv, where officials said the Ukrainian army shot down several rockets. A total of 13 “kamikaze” drones, so called because they are destroyed when their explosive payloads detonate, were shot down over Mykolaiv. But a thermal power plant in Burshtyn, southeast of Lviv, was hit and caught fire.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said that, in the past 10 days, 30 per cent of the country’s power stations have been damaged, leading to widespread blackouts. On Wednesday, Mr. Zelensky said officials were working on various contingency plans, including creating mobile power points “for the critical infrastructure of cities, towns and villages.”

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Russian President Vladimir Putin is showing no signs of backing off his effort to destroy Ukrainian civilian infrastructure and cement Russian gains. On Wednesday he moved to consolidate control over captured territory by imposing martial law in four Ukrainian regions Moscow claims to have annexed: Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia. It’s unclear what impact the decree will have on those regions. Mr. Putin has also tightened security measures across Russia.

Travel in and out of eight Russian provinces near the Ukrainian border has been restricted, and security forces have been given power to impose curfews, detain people and seize property. Mr. Putin has also handed the leaders of all Russian regions additional authority to maintain public order and boost production to help the war effort.

In Kherson, the Russian-installed leadership has ordered the evacuation of around 60,000 people. “The Ukrainian side is building up forces for a large-scale offensive,” Vladimir Saldo, the region’s Kremlin-supported governor, told Russian state television. “Where the military operates, there is no place for civilians.”

Ukrainian officials have dismissed the evacuation as propaganda. “The Russians are trying to scare the people of Kherson with fake newsletters about the shelling of the city by our army, and also arrange a propaganda show with evacuation,” said Andriy Yermak, Mr. Zelensky’s chief of staff.

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The increased attacks and the heightened war rhetoric have forced many Ukrainians to start planning for the worst.

Nadia Zhyla, 26, who moved to Lviv from Kharkiv a few months ago, has started looking for a place in the countryside where she can go if the city’s heating system is bombed. Many cities in Ukraine have gas-fired heating plants that serve entire neighbourhoods. Around 40 per cent of the population, mainly in urban areas, rely on these large plants, which leaves them vulnerable to missile strikes.

Ms. Zhyla said she was also considering moving to a new apartment in Lviv that has a fireplace. When asked if she was worried about the coming winter, she laughed and replied, “We have a crisis mindset in Ukraine. We have 100 shades of worry.”

Her fiancé is serving in the military, and he sent her a hazmat suit that soldiers had been given in preparation for a nuclear attack. “He said he didn’t need it,” she said. “Now I have to figure out how to put it on.” If things get really bad, Ms. Zhyla said, she would consider leaving Ukraine.

That type of thinking has people across the border in Poland concerned about a possible wave of Ukrainian refugees this winter.

Over at Przemysl’s Ukrainian Centre, Katarzyna Komar said staff and volunteers got used to sheltering around 100 refugees a night in the facility’s theatre last winter and spring. They still run a shelter for about 50 refugees in a nearby building, but Ms. Komar, who works at the centre, said everyone is bracing for what will happen this winter.

She said the centre is better prepared for any influx than it was last time. And while its staff hope they won’t have to use the theatre again as sleeping quarters, Ms. Komar said, they won’t hesitate if there is exceptional need.