Stay or leave? Ukrainians face a hard choice ahead of what could be the war’s toughest winter

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Matvii Yermolenko is 2, but he already knows the words for siren and air defense. This winter, his mother decided to take him out of Kyiv.

“There is sadness, but even stronger is the understanding of what I have to do — leave,” Matvii’s mother, Kateryna Tsvihun, said, adding that they will come back in spring. “I cannot live without Kyiv and Ukraine. I am rooted here, my child is Ukrainian, and my husband is fighting for this.”

Ukrainians are bracing for what many expect to be the hardest winter of the war. Last year, heating disruptions left thousands of people in freezing apartments in Kyiv . Now, officials and analysts say, the badly damaged energy system is increasingly struggling to withstand attacks, putting the country’s resilience to another test. With no end to the war in sight, many people are thinking only about getting through the coming months.

Kyiv is already under strain. Since Aug. 22, not a single day has passed in the capital without an air raid threat, often followed by drone attacks during the day and missiles at night. Some residents have moved to other parts of the country or abroad for the winter. While it's impossible to calculate how many people left the capital, changes in the rental market offer a possible clue.

“In September, we saw that the number of flats available to rent was increasing in Kyiv, whilst it was decreasing in a number of western cities," Liudmyla Kiriukhina, the head of the statistics department at LUN, a Ukrainian real estate platform, said. “This could have indicated that tenants were moving from the capital to the west of the country.”

Exploiting its advantage in jet-powered drones and ballistic missiles, Russia has expanded its targets in the city to include gas stations , data centers, warehouses , big-box stores and bridges that are crucial for civilian transport in a city divided by the Dnieper River. Electricity disruptions have caused problems on the subway, Kyiv’s main transport artery, while water supply issues are increasingly common. Some residents have also criticized local authorities' winter preparations.

But leaving costs money, and many more are staying, stocking up on power banks, water containers and portable gas stoves.

Kateryna Tsvihun, 41, found last winter very difficult. She could not bear the thought of her son going through more power outages, let alone possibly losing heating as well. So she told her husband, a soldier since 2022, that she wanted to spend this winter elsewhere.

She could not find a suitable option in Ukraine, but a Facebook group for mothers who like to travel led her to one in Albania.

“The birth of a child is the ultimate game-changer,” she said. “Before, no matter how scared I was, I stayed in Kyiv and did not even think about leaving.”

Russia recently struck an area near a subway station where she and Matvii often go for walks. “It’s a bit scary to stay,” she said. “But it’s still our home, so we will come back this spring.”

She gave her portable power station, power banks and rechargeable lamps to relatives staying in the capital. For the trip, she bought a large, light-blue suitcase, packing only with practical things and a few of Matvii’s small toys.

“I see it as an opportunity to exhale, because the tiredness and pressure have been piling up over these years of war, the lonely waiting for my husband, and the attacks,” she said.

Ukraine’s Energy Ministry said Wednesday that Russia had continued to attack power generation facilities and substations. “Attacks on the energy sector are not stopping,” it said in a statement.

“The situation in Kyiv is especially difficult right now: People and businesses are facing many hours of electricity and water outages,” President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said. Repeated strikes and constant air raid alerts are making repairs take much longer, he said.

“This winter could be just as hard, or even harder than the last one,” Andrii Tkachov, acting head of the Kyiv City Military Administration, said. “The enemy will keep striking critical infrastructure and trying to disrupt residents’ heating and water supply.”

He said Russia's aim is to create a crisis and humanitarian and social tensions in the capital, Ukraine's most populous city and the seat of its main state institutions.

“The enemy understands that attacks on Kyiv will affect the morale of the entire country. The main goal is to break Kyiv,” Tkachov said. “But, as we say, Kyiv rests on three pillars: air defense, our utility and energy workers, and the self-organization of its residents.”

As of Nov. 1, the number of active rental listings in Kyiv had risen by 87% compared with Aug. 1, according to LUN. In September, the number of flats offered for rent during the month rose in Kyiv but fell in several western cities, including Uzhhorod, Lviv, Chernivtsi and Ivano-Frankivsk. According to LUN, this could point to tenants moving west from the capital, but more time was needed to study the changes.

Kateryna Tymoshenko, 39, brought her two children to an Oct. 17 rally demanding the resignation of Kyiv Mayor Vitalii Klitschko. Civic groups, activists and veterans organized the protest, accusing city authorities of poor winter preparation, a shortage of shelters, corruption and misuse of budget funds. Klitschko has called the criticism and the rally part of a campaign to discredit him.

“His direct call was to leave. … I don’t have the money to leave,” Tymoshenko said in response to the mayor’s call earlier in October.

She considered moving to central or western Ukraine, but high demand has driven up prices, and she could not find affordable housing. Her husband is also at the front, so the winter preparations fell on her shoulders.

“I expect it to be worse than it was, precisely because of the psychological state,” she said. “I hope there will at least be heating and sewage.” Otherwise, she said, even people like her ready for harsh conditions would consider leaving.

Tymoshenko has power banks, and the family has already moved to a first-floor apartment.

“Everything depends on our partners,” she said. “Despite the resilience of our people, I am ready to endure for as long as possible. But we have no money, we have no weapons, we have no Patriots (anti-missile batteries). So we are forced to explain, to beg, to plead.”

“Well, this is the life we have,” she said. “We didn’t choose it.”