Kyiv, Ukraine
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Liudmyla Shramko left Kyiv in 2024 with her young twin daughters to avoid shelling and blackouts. But a year later, 16-hour power outages caught up with her in western Ukraine.
The 40-year-old recalls a two-day unscheduled power outage in her apartment in the capital in summer 2024 when it was 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit). “It was extremely difficult with children,” she told CNN. Not only was she not able to turn on air conditioning, but she couldn’t cook or use the elevator either.
When Shramko moved to a new city with her twins Oleksandra and Yelizaveta, then one year old, she looked for an apartment with the kind of blackout-proof…
