• Ukraine waits for the next Russian missile attack.
• It’s inevitable.
• Russia has used strategic bombers and warships to destroy Ukraine’s infrastructure.

I’m no fighter, but I understand. You know the feeling if you’ve ever prepared for a stomach punch.

Inhalation. Muscle contraction. The impending blow. Hope it’s not too painful.

Ukraine waits for the next Russian missile attack.

It’s inevitable. When only. Poor.

Since October 10, Russia has used strategic bombers and warships to destroy Ukraine’s infrastructure.

Cruise missiles hit electricity and water plants.

Ukrainian air defense downs most. Enough get through to bring down the energy grid.

People shiver in frigid houses for days. Candlelit kitchens use camping stoves. They sleep with all their clothes and blankets.

Engineers labor double or triple shifts to fix fried circuits and transformers. Power is restored after a few days.

The result is crippling the country’s energy network. Reduced capacity Even after power is restored, blackouts remain.

Ukraine and its allies say Russia is using winter as a weapon.

Ukraine says Russia is committing a war crime, but international law is murky.

Military and civilian electrical systems are viable targets. Ukraine’s military does too. The US targeted North Korea, Vietnam, and Iraq’s oil infrastructure.

On a dismal, powerless late autumn day, I went filming in Kyiv’s suburbs.

Recent snow was thawing into nasty brown puddles as the temperature hovered above zero. We stumbled onto a Soviet-era residential tower building.

In the lobby, we used headlamps. As we climbed apparently endless flights of steps, our breath fogged the light.

We tried the 8th-floor doors.

Alyona’s opened. She welcomed the odd males in the dark passageway.

Alyona and her husband reside in a two-room apartment with their toddler.

She used battery-powered fairy lights to fight the gloom.

“Christmas in November,” she grinned. Family members sleep together to stay warm.

Alyona told me how airstrikes and outages affected morale.

No one she knows is willing to negotiate with Russia because of the strikes. “We detest them more.”

It’s typical of Ukrainian defiance. If no electricity means no Russia, Ukrainians say they’ll take it.

I filmed my reporter’s piece on the tower’s stairs.

Paused between takes. Far below, voices echoed. Their owners arrived slowly.

Lyudmilla with her children. She stumbled up the stairs with a toddler in her arms, cursing the Russians.

As she passed us, she grinned and gasped “Slava Ukraine!” Ukraine, glory!

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