At a suburban Kyiv railway station, two carriages painted in the blue and white livery of Ukrainian Railways sit on the main platform, their diesel engines running as snow steadily falls. The train is not going anywhere but it is providing a vital service for dozens of people who have been left without power and basics like running water or heating.
These are Ukraine's Invincibility Trains, designed to boost public morale and provide some comfort as a bitter winter coincides with intensifying Russian attacks.
In one of the carriages, Alina sits watching her infant son Taras playing with toys provided by international charities who help run the service.
It's winter and it's rather cold outside, says Alina which is something of an understatement. With the effect of the wind-chill, temperatures this week in Kyiv have hit -19C. It is bitterly cold.
I live in a new building on the 17th floor, but we have no elevator, no electricity and no water supply, says Alina. As Taras plays with his toys, she says it is also a relatively safe and comfortable place for her daughter to meet friends.
It is also a welcome distraction for Alina, whose husband works all day in a factory, but she suddenly starts to stutter and weep as she tells me about her 54-year-old father who was killed at the front two years ago in a summer offensive near Bakhmut.
As she regathers her composure, Alina says she will definitely come back here and welcomes the relief the train brings from the weather and the nightly Russian strikes.
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky has accused Russia of deliberately exploiting the bitter winter to target power stations, energy storage facilities and other critical infrastructure. Kyiv's Mayor, Vitali Klitschko, somewhat controversially this week also suggested that city residents, who could, should leave Kyiv to help ease pressure on critical resources.
It was a comment seized upon by Russia as a sign of resignation and defeatism.
But despite such obvious hardships, most people here in Kyiv remain stoic and are prepared to put up with them.
For Yulia Mykhailiuk, Ihor Honcharuk and their one-year-old son Markiian, that means heating building bricks on a gas stove to try to warm up the rest of their small apartment.
The flat, in an old Soviet-era apartment block on the east side of the Dnipro river, is a temporary move because their own home was partially damaged in a Russian attack last August.
We've had electricity today for something like four minutes, Ihor tells me. All of our charging stations and power banks have no energy left in them.
Compared to all previous winters, the situation now is the worst, according to Olena Pavlenko, president of the Kyiv-based think tank DiXi Group.
Around the clock and across the city, engineers from private energy companies are repairing power plants hit directly in Russian strikes or installations indirectly affected by them. But as the war drags on, it's hard to find anyone in Ukraine who has not been directly impacted by the conflict.
This extraordinarily cold winter will not last for much longer, but the energy crisis and the fear of continued war hang ominously over the city.
