One Strike, a Thousand Victims
How Russia Turns Cold Into a Weapon — and What It Teaches Us About Staying Warm in an Angry World
Learning from Disasters — How to Stay Warm When Systems Fail
The Cold Is Not an Accident
For once, Kyiv remained comparatively quiet. During the night into Tuesday, Russian air attacks were directed at other regions of the country. In Odesa, Kharkiv, and the oblasts of Dnipropetrovsk and Donetsk, power outages followed. In Mykolaiv in the south, Russian drones also targeted energy infrastructure.
But even in the capital, many apartments remain without heating and electricity after the attacks of recent weeks.
Russia is deliberately destroying civilian infrastructure. The humanitarian consequences are devastating — especially during the current cold wave. For two weeks, temperatures have remained almost continuously below freezing. In Kyiv, where some districts have not been heated since January 9, residents report ice forming in their living rooms and nights spent wearing winter coats under piles of blankets.
Even hospitals experience power outages. Schools and kindergartens have remained closed since the New Year holidays.
Ukraine’s domestic intelligence service, the SBU, classifies the Russian attacks as crimes against humanity. In reference to the Holodomor — the famine deliberately engineered by Moscow in the 1930s — some speak of a “Cholodomor”. While the scale is not comparable to the millions who starved, the symbolism is deliberate. “Cholod” means cold in Ukrainian.
This is not collateral damage.
This is thermodynamic warfare.
The Soviet Inheritance: Efficiency Turned Into a Death Trap
Russia acts with cynical calculation. Its attacks exploit the structural features of Ukraine’s heating system — and Russia knows this system intimately.
Most large urban heating facilities date back to Soviet times. Copies of many original blueprints still exist in Moscow.
Like most former Eastern Bloc states, Ukraine relies heavily on district heating. For rapidly growing cities with vast concrete housing blocks, the Soviets built combined heat-and-power plants (CHP). These facilities supply entire districts with electricity and, as a by-product, hot water for heating.
Most apartment blocks therefore have no individual heating systems. Fuel is primarily gas; in regions like Donbas, coal is also used.
Before the war, 5.3 million Ukrainian households depended on district heating — nearly half the country. In major cities, the share was far higher.
In peacetime, this centralized system was an advantage.
In war, it becomes a single point of failure.
One missile strike on a CHP plant cuts electricity and heat to tens of thousands of people at once. That makes these facilities irresistible targets.
Russia has escalated further this winter: attacks no longer focus only on generation, but also on transport infrastructure — pipelines, substations, pumping stations. These locations, largely unchanged since Soviet times, are precisely mapped in Russian archives.
“What Russia is doing here is no better than the siege of Leningrad in the winter of 1943,” says energy expert Diana Korsakaite. “The goal is to freeze a civilian population to death.”
That sentence should haunt Europe.
Instead, we debate gas prices.
This Is Not Just Ukraine’s Story
Let’s be brutally honest:
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Centralized heating
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Just-in-time energy
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Gas dependency
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Electrification without redundancy
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No household autonomy
That’s not a Ukrainian problem.
That’s modern civilization.
Climate chaos, war, cyberattacks, grid failure — pick your apocalypse. The outcome is the same:
Cold kills faster than hunger.
So let’s stop pretending this is abstract geopolitics and talk survival.
HOW TO STAY WARM IN AN ANGRY WORLD
A brutally honest, no-bullshit survival guide
Rule #1: Heat Is Life
Forget comfort. Forget aesthetics. Forget ideology.
Your only question is:
Can I generate, retain, and control heat when the system fails?
Everything below serves that goal.
PART I: BODY FIRST — YOU ARE THE PRIMARY HEATING SYSTEM
1. Layering (The Onion Principle)
This is physics, not fashion.
Base layer
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Wool or synthetic
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NO cotton (it kills insulation when wet)
Mid layer
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Fleece, wool, down
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Traps air = heat
Outer layer
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Windproof, preferably waterproof
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Prevents convective heat loss
Extremities
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Head: up to 30% heat loss
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Hands & feet: insulate aggressively
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Sleep with socks. Always.
Pro tip:
Two thin layers beat one thick layer. Air is the insulation.
2. Sleep Is Survival
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Sleep in the smallest space possible
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Use sleeping bags rated below expected temperature
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Emergency trick: line bags with reflective foil or emergency blankets
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Share heat (yes, humans are radiators)
PART II: SHELTER — INSULATE OR DIE SLOWLY
Apartments & Houses
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Seal windows with plastic foil or trash bags
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Use rugs, curtains, mattresses against exterior walls
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Close unused rooms completely
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Create a “warm core” room
Caravans, RVs, Boats
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Foam insulation everywhere possible
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Condensation kills heat — ventilate minimally but consistently
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Engine heat recovery systems (boats & vans): underrated, lifesaving
Absolute rule:
Small, sealed, layered spaces beat big cold ones.
PART III: HEAT SOURCES — THE GOOD, THE BAD, THE DEADLY
🔥 Gas (Natural Gas, Propane, Butane)
Pros
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Efficient
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Portable (propane)
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Widely available (until it isn’t)
Cons
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CO poisoning risk
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Ventilation mandatory
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Infrastructure dependent
Never sleep with unvented gas heaters running. Never.
🛢 Oil / Diesel / Kerosene
Pros
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High energy density
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Diesel heaters are extremely efficient
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Works off-grid
Cons
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Smell
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Maintenance
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Fire risk
Best option for long-term off-grid heating if used properly.
🪵 Wood
Pros
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Renewable
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Locally scavengeable
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Psychological comfort matters
Cons
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Requires chimney or rocket stove
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Urban availability limited
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Smoke visibility in conflict zones
Rocket stoves:
Minimal fuel, maximal heat. Learn them.
🪨 Coal
Pros
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Massive heat output
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Long burn time
Cons
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Toxic fumes
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CO risk
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Storage issues
Coal is ugly. But it works when nothing else does.
🍶 Alcohol (Ethanol, Spirit Burners)
Pros
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Clean burn
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Indoor-safe with ventilation
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Compact
Cons
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Low heat output
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Fuel scarcity
Backup option, not a primary heat source.
🔋 Electricity & Batteries
Hard truth:
Electric heating is useless without a grid.
Exceptions
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Insulated blankets
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Low-watt heating pads
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Paired with solar + storage (rare)
Electricity is fragile. Heat must not depend on it alone.
PART IV: WHAT NOT TO DO (THIS KILLS PEOPLE)
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❌ Burning charcoal indoors
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❌ Improvised open flames
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❌ Blocking ventilation completely
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❌ Trusting “temporary outages”
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❌ Assuming authorities will save you
Cold deaths happen quietly, at night, to people who thought they had time.
PART V: THE POLITICAL LIE WE’RE LIVING IN
We were told:
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Centralization is efficient
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Redundancy is wasteful
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Individual resilience is paranoid
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Energy will always be there
Ukraine proves the opposite.
So will the next heatwave blackout.
So will the next winter storm.
So will the next war.
Resilience is not selfish. It is ethical.
FINAL TRUTH
Russia did not invent freezing civilians.
Empires have always used cold, hunger, and infrastructure as weapons.
What is new is how fragile modern comfort really is.
If you cannot heat:
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your body
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your shelter
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your immediate space
without permission from a system —
then the system owns your survival.
Learn from Ukraine.
Learn from disaster.
Prepare — not out of fear, but out of responsibility.
Because the cold does not care
who you voted for.
🔥
yours truly,
Adaptation-Guide
