Olha Mazhuga has come home for New Year's Eve.
She has just arrived in kyiv from Poland, where she went at the start of the invasion —and where she is now helping Ukrainian refugees to reach countries like Spain— to spend the holidays with her son, a soldier stationed at the front, who is also returning to house for traditionally very important holidays in Ukraine.
“This year we may have to celebrate by candlelight, but we will be together,” says Mazhuga.
Wrapped in a pink coat and hat, the woman takes pictures of the Christmas tree with the effigy of the Archangel Michael, protector of kyiv, who presides over the Saint Sophia square, in the center of the capital.
The fir tree is powered by generators and uses energy efficient lights.
Like most of the country, the capital suffers from constant blackouts due to Russia's attacks on Ukraine's energy infrastructure, in an attempt by the Kremlin to break the resistance of a citizenry that has kept an eye on Russian President Vladimir Putin for more than of 10 months.
More than nine million people suffer from electricity supply problems, according to government data.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said late Monday that power shortages persist, but power sector workers had reconnected many networks over Christmas.
Living conditions are even more complex in the cities closest to the front line in Donbas, Zaporizhia or the Kherson region on the southern flank.
In a large part of the city, recaptured by the Ukrainian forces from the Russian occupation at the beginning of November and which became a symbol of the difficulties Russia is experiencing in the war, there is not only no electricity, but also no heating or water.
In recent weeks, Putin's troops have stepped up attacks on Kherson.
On December 25, while half the world was celebrating Christian Christmas, several bombardments hit the center of the city, killing a dozen people and injuring around 60;
many were in the area shopping at a nearby supermarket.
On Wednesday, Kremlin forces attacked a maternity hospital, according to local authorities.
The bombardment did not leave any injuries in the hospital, where there were hardly any patients left huddled in shelters, according to data from the Kherson Administration.
This Wednesday, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has warned that the real number of civilian fatalities from Russia's war in Ukraine is "considerably higher" than the 6,884 -including 429 children- officially registered.
The Kremlin's war has also killed tens of thousands of soldiers, has left a trail of destruction in cities and towns, and has led to a global escalation in global food and energy prices.
There will be no traditional New Year's Eve concert in kyiv this year.
Nor music all night in the modern clubs of the capital, considered the new Berlin before the invasion.
Added to the power cuts is the curfew, from 11:00 p.m. to 5:00 a.m., a period in which you cannot be on the street.
The blow of the war has left important wounds in the Ukrainian economy, for years highly dependent on foreign loans, which the International Monetary Fund has not continued to send to the same extent during the large-scale war.
Thus, the Ukrainian economy is expected to contract by around 40% this year.
And businesses that traditionally make good cash during the holidays, such as nightclubs or restaurants, have a very difficult time this year.
Some have found more imaginative solutions.
Like the legendary
techno
and
house
club Closer, which will host a party that promises to be epic, from 5:00 on January 1 to 10:00 p.m.
Not the “ideal” plan for Yaroslav, a 55-year-old lawyer from kyiv, who is strolling through the shopping center below Maidan Square.
He is looking for a present for his wife.
He is from eastern Ukraine, an area where the tradition is to give gifts on December 31.
Yaroslav, his wife and his teenage children will go these days to a house they have in the country, with another friendly family, to spend New Year's Eve.
There are not a few citizens who plan some kind of short getaway these days —especially to the west of the country— to celebrate the holidays.
Hotels and accommodation in the Transcarpathia area, for example, where there is no curfew, are overflowing.
“People want to keep celebrating, having a pseudo-normal life.
It is also a form of resistance”, says Yaroslav.
Yulia, Dasha and Daria, university students, will spend New Year's Eve at one of their houses.
It is his way of making this year "a little special" given the circumstances.
Dasha, an Economics student, shrugs at the thought of her New Year's wishes.
“I would say peace, but thinking of something more short-term, I am satisfied that we have electricity and that there are no attacks,” she points out.
The prospect of the war ending does not seem to be getting any closer.
President Zelensky, who a few months ago had completely closed the door on any talks with Putin, is increasingly talking about a 10-point peace plan, which calls for Russia to fully respect Ukraine's territorial integrity, withdraw its troops, the release of all prisoners, a court for those responsible for the aggression and security guarantees for Ukraine.
Moscow has not even considered it.
This Wednesday, Dmitri Peskov, spokesman for the Kremlin, reiterated that Ukraine must take into account what he called "current realities", that is, the illegal annexation of the four Ukrainian regions - partially occupied by Russia - in recent months: Donetsk, Lugansk , Kherson and Zaporizhia.
“There can be no plan for Ukraine without taking these realities into account with regard to Russian territory;
with the entry of four regions into Russia", Peskov said at a regular press conference, quoted by the Interfax agency.
The Kremlin spokesman has not even mentioned Crimea – the Ukrainian peninsula illegally annexed in 2014 – an issue that he considers directly settled and indisputable.
"Plans that do not take these realities into account cannot be peaceful," Peskov launched.
In eastern Ukraine, in Donbas, the alleged motive that Putin used to justify the invasion, to "denazify" the country and "liberate" that territory, bloody fighting continues.
kyiv troops are trying to push the Kremlin forces on the Kremina-Svetove line to recapture an area that may become the key to advance towards Lisichansk and Severodonetsk, in the Lugansk region, almost completely occupied by Russia.
The situation, President Zelensky said on Wednesday, is "difficult" in the city of Bakhmut, in Donetsk, where Ukrainian troops are resisting the siege and the few citizens who remain hiding in cellars and shelters survive under sustained bombing.
In the town, devastated by the attacks, "there is no place that is not covered in blood," insisted the Ukrainian leader.
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