BORYSPIL – With freezing temperatures gripping Ukraine, emergency repair teams are tirelessly working to restore electricity in the Kyiv region. This comes after continuous Russian attacks severely damaged the country’s energy infrastructure, leaving many vulnerable to one of the harshest winters in recent memory.

In Boryspil, a town located in the Kyiv region with approximately 60,000 residents, crews are dismantling and reconstructing damaged electrical systems in a race against time to mend the destruction.

Braving the snow and enduring temperatures as low as -15°C (5°F), these workers labor from dawn until midnight, as shared by Yurii Bryzh, head of Boryspil’s regional department for the private electricity company DTEK, in a conversation with The Associated Press.

Currently, they have succeeded in restoring electricity for four hours each day. However, Bryzh noted a recurring issue: when power is restored, residents quickly use all available appliances to clean, cook, or charge devices, which often overloads and crashes the system again.

The situation for civilians is dire, as highlighted by Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko, who remarked that these outages are the most extensive and enduring since Russia’s large-scale invasion nearly four years ago. Some households have been left without power for days.

Apartments in the capital are freezing, and when venturing outside people wear heavy layers of clothes against the bitter cold that chills to the bone. Across Kyiv, snow covers the ground and roofs and is piled up next to sidewalks. At night, the streets are dark and towering apartment blocks show no light in the windows.

Kyiv residents told the AP how they cope with the lack of light and heat at home.

A married couple, scientists Mykhailo, 39, and Hanna, 43, said the temperature in the bedroom of their 5-year-old daughter Maria has fallen to -15 degrees C (13 degrees F). They gave only their first names for security reasons.

They have a gas stove to cook but at night they huddle together in the same bed under heavy blankets. “We have to use all the blankets we have in the house,” Hanna said.

The couple take their daughter to work with them during the day, because the premises have a generator whereas Maria’s kindergarten has no heating.

Christmas decorations still hang on the walls of their apartment, occasionally lit up by their flashlights.

Zinaida Hlyha, 76, said she heats water on her gas stove and puts it in bottles that she tucks into bed. She says she doesn’t complain because Ukrainian soldiers on the roughly 1,000-kilometer (600-mile) front line have it worse.

“Of course it’s hard, but if you imagine what our guys in the trenches are going through now, you have to endure,” she said. “What can you do? This is war.”

Tetiana Tatarenko said two of her sons are fighting in the war. She grew more fearful of Russia’s nighttime barrages after a Shahed drone hit the apartment building next door.

In her cold apartment, it seemed that normal life has shut down.

“It’s as if life in the house has stopped, that’s the feeling,” she said.

Her neighbor, 89-year-old physicist Raisa Derhachova, lives alone and sometimes plays the piano in what she calls “this terrifying cold.”

“Of course, it’s hard to survive this. We survived World War II, and now this terrible war is upon us,” she said.

Russian barrages are aiming at power plants and large substations, and procuring replacement equipment such as transformers can take months, according to Dennis Sakva, an energy sector analyst at Dragon Capital, a Ukrainian investment company.

“There are two types of heroes in Ukraine,” he said. “They are the military and energy workers.”

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Volodymr Yurchuk in Kyiv, Ukraine contributed.

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Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine