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CHERNIHIV: Ukrainian cook Natalia Meshok leaves home at 2 a.m. for the nursery where she works, using night-time hours when power supply is more or less stable to prepare food for dozens of children.
Meshok, 59, lives and works in the northern city of Chernihiv, which has been hammered by repeated Russian drone and missile attacks on its power infrastructure in recent weeks, causing regular blackouts and disrupting daily life.
“Completely empty and dark. It’s a bit scary, but you realize you have to go because there are children here,” she said, standing in a dark kitchen where pots of food rested on the stove ready to be served when the kindergarten opened.
Chernihiv was one of the first cities to feel the brunt of intensifying Russian strikes on electricity and gas facilities across Ukraine, including in the capital Kyiv where hundreds of thousands of households lost power after an Oct. 10 attack.

RUSSIA TAKES AIM AT POWER SECTOR, HEATING
Officials say the frequency and accuracy of such attacks have increased during the last two months, leading some to predict a particularly hard 2025/26 winter as the war approaches its fourth anniversary.
“We are preparing for various scenarios, including the worst-case ones,” energy minister Svitlana Hrynchuk said just before the Oct. 10 attack.
President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russia launched 3,100 drones and 92 missiles at Ukraine in just one week starting on Oct. 6.
Russia denies targeting civilians, saying that its objective is to degrade Ukraine’s military capabilities.
Meshok was glad the electricity lasted longer than the usual couple of hours that night, meaning that she and her fellow cooks managed to prepare lunch for the children — aged from 2 years and up — as well as breakfast.
“Do you know why children are in the nursery? Because their parents are working. No one has canceled that. They need to go to work,” said Yevheniia Savchenko, director of the nursery, a municipal facility.
It had been raining in Chernihiv for almost a week when Reuters visited in early October, and the temperature in the nursery was 14 degrees Celsius (57 F). The basement, which doubles as an air raid shelter, was slightly warmer.
Savchenko said she did not know when the heating would be turned on.
In peacetime, Ukraine provided heating to state facilities in time for the so-called “heating season” that starts in mid-October when temperatures typically begin to drop.

MANY CHILDREN KEPT AT HOME FOR WARMTH
Frequent air raid sirens mean the children at Chernihiv’s kindergarten No. 72 spend much of their days in the basement, playing, singing and eating.
At one point the brightly lit space was plunged into darkness, prompting excited shouts from some of the toddlers, before a generator kicked in and the lights came back on to cheers. The generator can provide light, but not heating.
Savchenko said only about 65 children were attending the kindergarten out of a total of 170 registered there.
“As long as there is no lighting and no heat, they (some parents) try to keep the child at home, because there they can heat the room a little with gas,” she said.

HITS TO POWER GENERATION, ELECTRICITY TRANSMISSION, GAS
Russia has been targeting Ukraine’s energy system throughout the war, and this autumn it has hit both power generation and electricity transmission systems, as well as gas production facilities.
Earlier this month, Russian forces struck Ukraine’s main gas fields, and the energy minister, Hrynchuk, said “significant” damage could force Kyiv to increase its gas imports by a third.
Ukraine, which says it does not attack civilian infrastructure, has in turn stepped up attacks on Russian oil refineries, causing a drop in oil processing and creating fuel shortages in many regions.
During the heating season, Ukraine uses gas mainly for the centralized urban heating system that is left over from Soviet times, without which millions would be living in cold homes as temperatures outside frequently drop below freezing.
If that system is unable to function fully, the electricity supply will not be able to compensate.
Some politicians are urging city dwellers to find winter accommodation in villages where they can use direct natural gas supplies to households or wood for heating.
There have been such warnings in previous years. But this year the energy minister announced for the first time since the war began in February 2022 that the government is prepared to restrict gas supplies to the population if needed, not just electricity.
“They want to break us, but just as Ukraine is not broken, neither are Ukrainians,” Meshok said of the Russians.
“We will endure ... and we will prevail, without fail. Faith in the future is essential. Because if there is no faith in the future, then what is the point of our endeavours?“

LIMA: Peru’s new President José Jerí refused to resign on Thursday following the death of a protester during a massive demonstration led by Gen Z activists demanding he step down.
About 100 people were also injured, including 80 police officers and 10 journalists, according to authorities, who said they were investigating the shooting and killing of the protester.
“My responsibility is to maintain the stability of the country; that is my responsibility and my commitment,” Jerí told the local press after visiting Peru’s Parliament, where he said he would request powers to combat crime.
The protests began a month ago calling for better pensions and wages for young people and expanded to capture the woes of Peruvians tired of crime, corruption and decades of disillusion with their government.
After Jerí, the seventh president in less than a decade, was sworn in on Oct. 10, protesters called for him and other lawmakers to resign.
Protests turn violent
Peru’s prosecutor’s office announced Thursday that it was investigating the death of 32-year-old protester and hip-hop singer Eduardo Ruíz, who prosecutors said was shot by firearm during the mass demonstration of thousands of young people. It wrote on the social media platform X that it has ordered the removal of Ruíz’s body from a Lima hospital and the “collection of audiovisual and ballistic evidence in the area where the incident occurred, in the context of serious human rights violations.”
Local media and security cameras showed video of Ruíz collapsing in a Lima street after a man fleeing from several protesters fired a shot. Witnesses said the shooter was running away because he was accused of being a plainclothes police officer infiltrated among the demonstrators.
At least 24 protesters and 80 police officers were injured in the demonstrations, according to Peru’s Ombudsman’s Office. Six journalists were struck by pellets and another four were assaulted by police, according to the National Association of Journalists.
The president expressed regret over the protester’s death.
Global trend
The Peruvian protests comes amid a wave of protests unfolding across the world, driven by generational discontent against governments and anger among young people. Protests have broken out in Nepal, the Philippines, Indonesia, Kenya, Peru and Morocco, with protesters often carrying black flags with the “One Piece” anime symbol — a pirate skull wearing a straw hat.
In Lima’s main plaza 27-year-old electrician David Tafur said he decided to join the demonstration after learning about it on TikTok.
“We’re fighting for the same thing — against the corrupt — who here are also killers,” he said, referring to violent 2022 protests and government crackdown in which 50 people were killed.
Controversial new president
The escalating tensions come just days after Peru’s Congress ousted President Dina Boluarte, was known as one of the least popular presidents in the world for repressing protests and failing to control crime.
Jerí, the 38-year-old president of Congress, then took office, promising to get a recent crime wave under control. He swore in Ernesto Álvarez, a ultraconservative former judge active on social media, as prime minister.
Álvarez has not yet commented on it, but previously claimed said that Peru’s Gen Z is a “gang that wants to take democracy by storm” and does not represent “the youth who study and work.”
Criticisms of Jerí and his government quickly emerged because he previously faced an investigation after being accused of a woman of raping her. The prosecutor’s office dismissed the case in August, though authorities continue to investigate another man who was with Jerí the day of the alleged rape. Protesters also condemned Jerí because as a legislator he voted in favor of six laws that experts say weaken the fight against crime.
Protesters demanded Jerí and other lawmakers resign and repeal the laws they say benefit criminal groups.
During the protest, more than 20 women shouted “The rapist is Jerí” or “Jerí is a violin” — a slang expression in Peru where “violin” means rapist. Protesters launched fireworks at police, who responded with tear gas and rubber pellets.
Frustrations grow
That anger was built upon decades of frustration by Peruvians, who have seen their leaders, year after year, plagued by corruption scandals, fueling a feeling of cynicism and deception in many of Peru’s youth.
“After the pension issue, other frustrations followed — linked to insecurity, the erosion of state capacity in Peru, and corruption,” said Omar Coronel, a sociology professor at the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru, who studies social movements.
Violent scenes from the protest drew back memories of violent protests in the early months of Boluarte’s government, when 50 protesters were killed.
Protesters held signs reading “Protesting is a right, killing is a crime.” One woman carried a poster that read “From a murderess to a rapist, the same filth,” criticizing the change in government.
“For me, it’s about outrage over abuse of power, corruption and killings,” said Tafur, the protester.