cold because i can find wood and heat the stove he saidauthorities in the ukrainiancontrolled areas of the neighboring hotly contested donetsk region have urged all remaining residents to evacuate and warned that gas and water services in many areas will likely not be restored by winter like in the kharkiv region ordinary ukrainians are still living in thousands of homes that have been wrecked by russian strikes with leaky or damaged roofs and blownout windows that are unable to provide protection against cold or wet weatherthe threat of a winter without heating has even spread to other areas of ukraine far from the front linesrussian president vladimir putin angered and embarrassed by a ukrainian strike on a key bridge to annexed crimea has intensified russias bombing campaign targeting civilian energy infrastructure around ukraine and leaving many cities and towns without electricity mondays strikes hit kyiv sumy in the northeast and vinnytsia in western ukrainein the center of kurylivka a group of men used a chainsaw to bring down a tree near a bus stop as they worked they warned an associated press reporter about the russian land mines still hidden in the surrounding grasswith so much of the areas towns destroyed and modern comforts all but disappeared the drive for survival trumps any concerns about the preservation of what was before with no utilities homes have become like rudimentary shelters from a medieval age where residents live by candlelight gather water from wells and bundle up to fend off the coldartems grandmother iryna panchenko said she and her grandson have been sleeping in an abandoned apartment next door since all their windows were blown out by a russian strikeafter the first explosion wave we lost one window and two were damaged after the second explosion all the other windows were destroyed she said its very cold living here its hard to cook its hard to run between the apartment and where we cook my legs hurtmakeshift leanto structures dot the overgrown courtyards of their apartment complex where residents gather to cook over fires one woman collected scraps of wood from a groundfloor apartment that was caved in by a russian rocket strike another resident joked that his home had become a fiveroom apartment after one of its exterior walls collapsedanton sevrukov 47 toasted bread and heated a kettle of water over a fire to bring up tea to his disabled motherno electricity no water no gas we are cold he said im making tea for my mother on the fire but she only drinks a little bit to warm up for a short timein the darkness of his cramped musty apartment sevrukovs mother sat under a blanket on a sofa piled with plates of spoiled food zoya sevrukova said shed been bedridden for seven years and that she spends most of her time seated playing solitaire with a worn pack of cardsits really cold now if it werent for my son i would freeze she saidsevrukov said hed asked