Russian strikes leave Ukrainian kids without heat and power, and parents stuck for options with schools closed

Kyiv — On a bitterly cold Wednesday in Kyiv’s Heroiv Dnipra neighborhood, Mariana Kiriluk, a foot doctor in her late-thirties, didn’t know what to do with her ten-year-old son Zahar. Schools in the Ukrainian capital are closed until February, as Russian strikes have knocked out power to half of the city.

As for thousands of other families, the power outages also mean it’s bitterly cold for Zahar and his mother, with temperatures dipping below five degrees Fahrenheit. 

“Sometimes I take him to work with me. Sometimes I have to leave him at home alone. It’s very hard: there’s no power, there’s no heat,” Kiriluk told CBS News.

This week, Zahar spent most days in a tent the Ukrainian Red Cross has set up outside the family’s apartment building — one of 1,300 “invincibility points” across the city. The shelter has heaters, phone charging stations and WiFi.

Kiriluk slipped out of work each day to check on Zahar, and she discovered during one recent visit that he had created a TikTok account to share his experiences with the Red Cross.

The tent in front of their home, Kiriluk told CBS News with a smile, is not “a long-term solution.”

Getting children back to school

Since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022, the lives of Ukraine’s children have been disproportionately affected. As of October 2025, Ukrainian officials said some 3,500 educational institutions had been damaged, and more than 700,000 children were displaced from their homes.

Ukrainian officials and charities have searched for opportunities to insulate children from the impacts of the war, with a focus on resuming in-person classes across the country.

“After the pandemic … and now the invasion, there is a generation of primary school children who have never seen a real school,” Viktoriia Zhydyk, a representative from SaveED, Ukraine’s largest education nonprofit, told CBS News. “Children are supposed to be in classes, to have community, to speak to each other … We are trying to fundamentally change the situation for children in catastrophic circumstances.”

But in Kyiv, resuming in-person instruction means addressing the power shortages the capital frequently faces. In 2025, Russia carried out 612 strikes on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, and Kyiv faced more than 100 days with power outages, according to the Kyiv City State Administration. 

“Every school has been prepared during this invasion,” Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko told CBS News on Thursday. “We have generators ready to work separately from the central heating system and central electricity.” 

Last year, the city’s efforts to get municipal schools back up and running enabled nearly 300,000 children to return to classrooms. 

Longer blackouts

In January, however, those preparations proved insufficient. Russia stepped up its attacks on January 9, and the city has struggled to return heating, electricity and running water to residents. 

As of Thursday, Klitschko said around 3,000 residential buildings in Kyiv remained without heating, including many apartment complexes that are home to thousands of people, prompting officials to extend Christmas and new year school vacations into February.

The current blackouts have been brutally long, testing the city’s ability to cope.  

Kyiv is “not ready for days without electricity,” Jamie Wah, Deputy Head of Delegation in Kyiv for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, told CBS News.  

Schools and hospitals are the priorities for the Red Cross, and Wah said addressing their needs has already meant “dipping into resources meant for emergencies.” 

Families caught between city and state

Mayor Klitschko said Kyiv residents have told him that schools and child care facilities being shuttered piles on more stress after enduring  nearly four years of war. 

“Parents complain that their children are sitting at home alone,” he said. “If we have an air [raid] alarm, there is no one to bring the children to a shelter.”

It’s a particular concern for the many Ukrainian families with members serving in the military.

“My husband has been on the front lines since the first days of the war,” Kiriluk told CBS News. “He rarely gets vacation … so it is just me taking care of the kids.”

Adding another layer of complication, political power in the capital has been split between Mayor Klitschko and a military administrator appointed by President Zelenskyy, and it remains unclear which authorities are ultimately responsible for getting the city’s public facilities reopened.

“Far too little has been done in the capital. And even these past few days, I haven’t seen sufficient effort — all of this must be urgently corrected,” President Zelenskyy said last week.

Klitschko said he couldn’t make decisions on reopening schools because they sit within the central government’s jurisdiction. 

“We plan to open schools next week,” he said, but “this is the decision of the central government, and we must follow this decision.”

Until the schools and daycares do reopen, Zahar will spend more days in the Red Cross’ invincibility tents, where his hosts have welcomed his social media publicity. 

“Thank you for your kind heart and your desire to help! We’re glad to get to know you,” the Ukrainian Red Cross commented on one of his recent TikToks.