Kyiv — On a bitterly chilly Wednesday in Kyiv’s Heroiv Dnipra neighborhood, Mariana Kiriluk, a foot physician in her late-thirties, did not know what to do together with her ten-year-old son Zahar. Colleges within the Ukrainian capital are closed till February, as Russian strikes have knocked out energy to half of the town.
As for hundreds of different households, the ability outages additionally imply it is bitterly chilly for Zahar and his mom, with temperatures dipping beneath 5 levels Fahrenheit.
“Generally I take him to work with me. Generally I’ve to go away him at house alone. It’s totally arduous: there is no energy, there is no warmth,” Kiriluk instructed CBS Information.
This week, Zahar spent most days in a tent the Ukrainian Pink Cross has arrange exterior the household’s house constructing — certainly one of 1,300 “invincibility factors” throughout the town. The shelter has heaters, cellphone charging stations and WiFi.
Aidan Stretch/CBS Information
Kiriluk slipped out of labor every day to examine on Zahar, and she or he found throughout one current go to that he had created a TikTok account to share his experiences with the Pink Cross.
The tent in entrance of their house, Kiriluk instructed CBS Information with a smile, isn’t “a long-term answer.”
Getting youngsters again to highschool
Since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022, the lives of Ukraine’s youngsters have been disproportionately affected. As of October 2025, Ukrainian officers mentioned some 3,500 instructional establishments had been broken, and greater than 700,000 youngsters have been displaced from their houses.
Ukrainian officers and charities have looked for alternatives to insulate youngsters from the impacts of the conflict, with a give attention to resuming in-person lessons throughout the nation.
CBS Information/Aidan Stretch 
“After the pandemic … and now the invasion, there’s a era of main college youngsters who’ve by no means seen an actual college,” Viktoriia Zhydyk, a consultant from SaveED, Ukraine’s largest schooling nonprofit, instructed CBS Information. “Kids are alleged to be in lessons, to have group, to talk to one another … We try to essentially change the state of affairs for youngsters in catastrophic circumstances.”
However in Kyiv, resuming in-person instruction means addressing the ability shortages the capital incessantly faces. In 2025, Russia carried out 612 strikes on Ukraine’s vitality infrastructure, and Kyiv confronted greater than 100 days with energy outages, in accordance with the Kyiv Metropolis State Administration.
“Each college has been ready throughout this invasion,” Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko instructed CBS Information on Thursday. “We’ve turbines able to work individually from the central heating system and central electrical energy.”
Final yr, the town’s efforts to get municipal faculties again up and operating enabled practically 300,000 youngsters to return to school rooms.
Longer blackouts
In January, nonetheless, these preparations proved inadequate. Russia stepped up its assaults on January 9, and the town has struggled to return heating, electrical energy and operating water to residents.
As of Thursday, Klitschko mentioned round 3,000 residential buildings in Kyiv remained with out heating, together with many house complexes which might be house to hundreds of individuals, prompting officers to increase Christmas and new yr college holidays into February.
CBS Information/Aidan Stretch 
The present blackouts have been brutally lengthy, testing the town’s potential to manage.
Kyiv is “not prepared for days with out electrical energy,” Jamie Wah, Deputy Head of Delegation in Kyiv for the Worldwide Federation of Pink Cross and Pink Crescent Societies, instructed CBS Information.
Colleges and hospitals are the priorities for the Pink Cross, and Wah mentioned addressing their wants has already meant “dipping into sources meant for emergencies.”
Households caught between metropolis and state
Mayor Klitschko mentioned Kyiv residents have instructed him that faculties and youngster care services being shuttered piles on extra stress after enduring practically 4 years of conflict.
“Dad and mom complain that their youngsters are sitting at house alone,” he mentioned. “If we have now an air [raid] alarm, there is no such thing as a one to convey the kids to a shelter.”
It is a specific concern for the various Ukrainian households with members serving within the navy.
“My husband has been on the entrance traces because the first days of the conflict,” Kiriluk instructed CBS Information. “He not often will get trip … so it’s simply me caring for the children.”
Including one other layer of complication, political energy within the capital has been cut up between Mayor Klitschko and a navy administrator appointed by President Zelenskyy, and it stays unclear which authorities are finally answerable for getting the town’s public services reopened.
“Far too little has been completed within the capital. And even these previous few days, I have not seen ample effort — all of this should be urgently corrected,” President Zelenskyy mentioned final week.
Klitschko mentioned he could not make selections on reopening faculties as a result of they sit throughout the central authorities’s jurisdiction.
“We plan to open faculties subsequent week,” he mentioned, however “that is the choice of the central authorities, and we should observe this resolution.”
Till the colleges and daycares do reopen, Zahar will spend extra days within the Pink Cross’ invincibility tents, the place his hosts have welcomed his social media publicity.
“Thanks in your variety coronary heart and your want to assist! We’re glad to get to know you,” the Ukrainian Pink Cross commented on certainly one of his current TikToks.
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