A group of middle-aged and elderly people stand in a chaotic line outside a bank in the centre of Zaporizhzhia on a Saturday morning. As they wait at the door, some start wondering out loud if the bank staff have evacuated – and if life will get even harder for residents as a result. It’s hard to get even basic financial tasks done between the blackouts and air raid warnings that measure time nowadays in Ukraine. A passerby informs the queue that the bank no longer opens on Saturdays, but people don’t disperse, as if frozen in their discomfort and hardship of life near the front.
Russia has seized roughly 60% of territory in Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region in the south-east of the country – and it borders the Donetsk and Kherson regions, where active fighting is taking place. The front line is 40km away from the city, which serves as the sole arrival point for Ukrainians leaving occupied territories in the east and south of the country. Indeed, since February, hundreds of thousands of people have crossed through the city to territory under Ukrainian control.
As the tenth month of war approaches, it’s as if people have adapted to the reality of living in a frontline city
Ukrainian cities, particularly those close to the eastern frontline, are at risk of spending the coming winter without electricity, water or heating. Russia is targeting critical infrastructure with mass rocket attacks, while settlements closer to the front line are under constant destruction. In Zaporizhzhia, the local authorities have so far managed to keep the electricity and heat supply largely online, despite the city’s proximity to the front line, but cities such as Kyiv have been hit hard, and left without electricity and even water.
