Ukrainian woman to welcome New Year in basement of destroyed apartment in Kyiv

KYIV/ISTANBUL

A 54-year-old Ukrainian woman will welcome the New Year in the basement of a partially destroyed apartment with no electricity and heating service in the town of Horenka in the central Kyiv region.

“Neighbors who are homeless like me also live here. They help me. After lunch, I have to go to bed at 4 p.m. because it’s dark outside. This is not living, it’s more an effort to hold on to life​​​​​​​,” Irina Vorobyova told Anadolu Agency.

She said she fell and broke her hip just before the Russia-Ukraine war started in February, adding that she could not walk inside and outside of the shelter without support, and that she lived alone with her pet.

“It was easier to live in the summer because I was going out with the help of my neighbors, but now it’s winter and dangerous, I can’t go outside. I’m afraid of falling again,” Vorobyova added.

Vorobyova has two other neighbors in the shelter whose houses were also burned during the Kyiv-Moscow clashes.

She further said they depend on humanitarian aid to live and will wait for meals that volunteers will bring on New Year’s Eve.

“Nothing can return to normal before the war is over,” she said, adding: “We have to be very careful. It’s too early to be comfortable” with regards to ongoing Russian attacks against the country.

Over 120 Russian missiles were reportedly launched against Ukraine earlier in the day, with local authorities in the capital Kyiv and the cities of Odesa, Lviv, Kharkiv, Zhytomyr, Mykolaiv, and Kryvyi Rih having reported explosions and power outages in their respective regions.

• Horenka
• Kyiv
• Russia
• Ukraine