'Death By Cold’: The Ukrainians Surviving the Kremlin's Kholodomor

As Vladimir Putin's war efforts falter, he is now attempting to freeze out the Ukrainian people, reports Zarina Zabrisky

The mural created by Banksy on the wall of a building destroyed by Russian troops in the Borodianka, Kyiv Region, northern Ukraine. Photo: Raj Valley / Alamy

Zarina Zabrisky is an award-winning author and journalist based in Ukraine. In this report she reveals the brutal conditions being imposed on the people living under attack from Vladimir Putin’s regime.

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Just hours after the European Parliament adopted a resolution recognising the Russian Federation as a state sponsor of terrorism, 70 Russian missiles targeted the energy infrastructure of Ukraine, already damaged by the multiple previous attacks. On 23 November, at 3pm, a message went out on social media platform Telegram notifying Ukrainians that the whole country had lost power. Not everyone received the message as the internet was down. Most regions were also cut off from heat and water. 

As temperatures around Ukraine plummet, the country – already exhausted by nine months of the brutal invasion – is on the brink of a humanitarian catastrophe. 

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, speaking online to the emergency session of the UN Security Council on the night of 23 November, said: “When the temperature is below zero outside, and tens of millions of people are left without heat and water as a result of Russian missiles hitting energy facilities, this is an obvious crime against humanity.”  He also spoke of the overnight airstrike that killed a two-day-old baby in Zaporizhzhia. 

Vladimir Putin’s ‘hybrid war’ strategy is inspired by Stalin’s genocidal policy of Holodomor (‘death by hunger’).