Ukrainian war widow faces Chernihiv blackout after strikes
Wednesday, October 22nd 2025, 8:08:54 am
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<body><p>STORY: In a dark flat in Chernihiv, Ukrainian war widow Anna Pustovoit watches her three-year-old daughter play with a battery-powered light.</p><p>She points it at a photo of her late father, Volodymyr, who was killed in the war with Russia last year.</p><p>Hundreds of thousands in the Chernihiv region, including Anna and her daughters, are facing a full blackout after Russian strikes severed power and water supplies on Tuesday.</p><p>"If there is no light, we turn it on in this room, and my daughter also has one that runs on batteries, and we have one on the table. We hang it like that, although you could hang it higher on the chandelier, it's more convenient, it covers the room more."</p><p>"Electricity was switched off for a day, it was on for a couple of hours and that's it. And here we are, sitting with flashlights. We had a large portable battery station, but it ran out, we found a place to charge it, it's being charged right now."</p><p>The portable battery station was bought by her husband Volodymyr before his death.</p><p>"Volodymyr bought it for us just before he died. We had blackouts then too, I argued with him about it, but now I am very grateful to him. At least it lasts ten hours, even eleven, it powers internet and light. We can't connect anything else to it, it's not powerful enough."</p><p>"It's very, very difficult without him, even though he served (in the army), but he was always supporting us. And so now there are only three of us left, that's it."</p><p>Aside from the power and water supply problem, Anna's family also deals with frequent air raid alarms.</p><p>"There are Russian attack drones flying above the buildings, at the level of the ninth floor. Today my child woke up in the middle of the night, covering her ears because the buzzing is really scary. She covers her ears and screams, 'mama'."</p><p>"Everything you can think of is flying in our direction. Our military has nothing to shoot these things down."</p><p>Chernihiv's acting mayor, Oleksandr Lomako, said Moscow was seeking to deprive local residents of power and heat ahead of the cold winter.</p><p>Russia has consistently hit Ukrainian energy facilities since launching a full-scale 2022 invasion of Ukraine, maintaining that they are a legitimate military target in war.</p><p>"I want it all to end, but we see that it is only getting worse and worse. There is no light, no water, no heat, no place to stay warm. Everyone that has the opportunity to go to the village or relatives there do so. But otherwise you have to buy a house in the village, with what money? And even then there's no electricity and a lot of things don't work."</p></body>
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