The coming winter, with its energy problems, promises to be one of the worst winters of the war for weary Ukrainians, and may change their attitude towards the war. The New York Post reports this.
Power outages in Ukraine are a fact, but estimates of their severity vary. In the best of cases, the power outage will last only four hours a day, but in the middle of winter it could be 20 hours or more at a time, the newspaper notes.
“The consequences of prolonged blackouts will be numerous: from water and heating outages to further blows to the country’s already weakened economy. But the biggest victim of all may be the already battered psyche of Ukrainians. After two and a half years of war, with little prospect of complete victory on the horizon and a series of battlefield setbacks in recent months, the men are reaching their breaking point. “Population depletion has direct military implications because many combat units are largely supported by civilian donations to purchase necessary equipment, and support is likely to decline as people run out of resources.” – says the article.
According to a senior Ukrainian official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, “we could have big problems this winter.” As winter sets in, people can become “exhausted, depressed and angry” and this can affect community morale, he said. “My biggest fear is that people will go through a winter like this and there will be no way to find consensus among the population,” said the official.
Executive Director of the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology Anton Grushetski confirms these concerns. He noted that “fatigue is increasing and this is causing more conflicts because people are more psychologically unstable.”
Now the situation cannot be called critical, but eventually cold days and darkness will come, and with them the attitude of Ukrainians towards the war may change, Grushetsky said. He claims the population is overwhelmingly opposed to peace with Russia “at any price,” but polls show a growing number of people willing to make difficult concessions to end the war.
Discontent with Ukraine’s Western partners may also increase if they do not provide kyiv with additional air defense systems and lift the ban on striking deep into Russia, the former Verkhovna Rada deputy said. Victoria Voitsitskaya.
“This winter will be pretty bad and people will probably have to deal with planned power outages across the country. “Any additional attacks that cause prolonged blackouts could have catastrophic consequences,” the head of the UN human rights monitoring mission in Ukraine said in a press release. Daniel Bell.
