Voice of Ukraine

From Maia Mikhaluk in Kyiv (540th day): It’s still summer. This week it’s been extra hot and next week is also promising to be like that as well. We are checking weather forecasts with hopes to see temperatures to go down. And they inevitably will! September will be relatively comfortable. But in our part of the world we have four distinct seasons and in no time we will face cold and wet fall and then freezing, dark winter.

Last year ruzzians started systematic missile attacks specifically targeting our energy infrastructure in mid-October and continued till the end of Feb. Ruzzians tried to plunge the whole of Ukraine into a long blackout which could cause enormous life-loss among the most vulnerable civilians – elderly and children. They succeeded only partially. We had very limited hours of electricity during the winter, there was one blackout that lasted 48 hours. But for the most part, it was better than we expected. We still had heat in our apartments.

Now as a complaining thought comes to my mind about the summer heat, I keep reminding myself that these warm sunny days are numbered and not that many are left. We need to start strategically thinking and planning for the upcoming winter. We keep hearing that this winter will be harder than the last one. Our infrastructure has not fully recovered from missile strikes and no doubt ruzzians will try again to destroy our energy sector and weaponize winter.

It is hard to think and plan for cold and dark winter while it’s still so hot outside, but I know we should. Thankfully all our churches are now set up with generators. But we might need to restock our churches’ Light Hubs with food so we could help our communities in the winter.