Statement by the Russian anti-war initiative ‘Left for peace without annexations’ (https://t.me/leftantiwar/129)
Russia's recent missile and drone attacks on Ukraine's heat and power generation facilities have pushed major cities to the brink of a humanitarian catastrophe. Following the strikes overnight from January 20 to 21, around 80% of homes in Kyiv were left without electricity, and 5000 apartment buildings were without heating. Similar devastating effects from Putin's attacks have been seen in Kharkiv, Dnipro, Kryvyi Rih, and elsewhere.
Although restoration of heating in Kyiv is promised for tomorrow, according to mayor Klitschko, 600,000 people have already left the city. Apartment temperatures have dropped to 10°C, and in some places to -4°C. Water has frozen in toilets, making them unusable. People are surviving as best they can—some using generators, others heating points, some gas. But life in a multi-story building without heating and electricity in winter is sheer torment, a real ordeal.
Russian media shamelessly report on strikes against Ukraine's energy and infrastructure facilities, quoting General Popov. They say that in previous years Russia refrained from such actions to spare the population, but now we see the inefficiency of that earlier approach. Russian outlets relish statements from Ukrainian politicians about the dire situation. It's no coincidence that WhatsApp and incoming international calls have been cut off—making it harder for relatives, acquaintances, and friends in Ukraine to reach Russians.
Indeed, this is the first time that the Russian authorities have gone so far in attacking the everyday lives of Ukrainian city dwellers, Ukrainian workers. It can be stated outright: this is not collateral damage, but a deliberate attack on the civilian population. Previous winters saw isolated strikes, but in 2026 the series of attacks was deliberately timed to coincide with the "Christmas" and "Epiphany" frosts. Many districts in Kyiv are now being reconnected to power for the second time—they had already been cut off after the January 9 strikes.
If you're reading this and you're Russian, a leftist—know that right now, hundreds of thousands and millions of Ukrainian workers are freezing in cold apartments without electricity, unable to use even basic household appliances. The blame lies not with some abstract capitalism, nor with all countries of the world, but with a very specific Russian imperialism.
The military significance of these attacks appears limited. It seems the main goal set by the Russian authorities is to force the Ukrainian state to accept unjust peace terms. So, we wish the Ukrainians resilience, good fortune, and courage—the outcome of this war depends on them.
Conscious Russians, anti-war leftists, must use the current situation to spread information about Russia's inhumane crimes in Ukraine. Sympathy based on heating outages is entirely possible and even likely, considering that Russian capitalism has often left Russian workers without heating in winter [...]. We need to spread this information so that even the most hardened pro-Putin supporters or ordinary people who still have some humanity left understand that the Russian state is bringing Ukraine not liberation, but darkness, cold, death, dictatorship—and that this must be resisted.