‘An attempt to break people’: Bucha holds out amid Russia’s weaponisation of winter

Russian attacks on Ukraine’s power plants as severe frost set in have been described as ‘crimes against humanity’

Outside the main pumping station for Bucha, three engineers, bundled up in parkas, are working on the emergency generator keeping the Ukrainian city supplied with water.

One holds a heat gun to the generator’s filter in an effort to unfreeze it, his face reddened by blowing snow and a daytime temperature of -12C (10.4F). Watching attentively is the city’s mayor, Anatolii Fedoruk. The generator in his office is also frozen when the Guardian visits and he apologises for the lack of coffee.