Statement of Youth Council of the Federation of Trade Unions of Ukraine

No electricity. No heating. No water. Children trying to sleep fully dressed under several blankets. Hospitals running on generators – until the fuel runs out. Phones dying. Internet barely holding.

This is not a natural disaster or a technical failure. This is deliberate.

Russia is using coldness and darkness as weapons. In subfreezing temperatures, cutting power and heat is not “pressure”. It is a direct attack on civilian lives.

Russians are attacking railways and national logistics, putting workers under fire, killing them and cutting lifelines for millions of people.

It is terrorism — executed by one state against another’s people.

Tolerating this terror is complicity. It tells every authoritarian regime that civilians can be terrorised into submission without consequences.

The damage went beyond Ukraine. Blackouts were recorded in parts of Moldova and Romania. State-sponsored error does not respect any borders.

Russian occupation army is unable to show Russian dictator any result at frontline where in-peaceful-life workers, unionists, engineers, entrepreneurs, civil servants, vendors and all other people of Ukraine became warriors and resisting with furious dedication war, hunger and distrust ion brought to their land in 2022. Thus the only remaining leverage of long distance weaponry is directed against weakest unarmed civilians.

But Ukraine is still standing. Because its people refuse to break.

Soldiers holding the front at the cost of their lives. Energy workers, medics, rescuers, utility workers restoring what is destroyed – again and again, under fire and enormous risk.

But heroism is not a security system.

We call on the international trade union movement, our brothers and sisters around the world to:

• publicly name Russia’s attacks on energy infrastructure, railways and logistics for what they are – terrorism and another sign of genocide against civilians;

• call on workers and unions worldwide to stand together with their Ukrainian brothers and sisters providing life-saving services under attack;

• pressure governments for real action, not statements of concern;

• strengthen sanctions and international isolation of the aggressor;

• contact unions and support practical humanitarian assistance for workers surviving winter without power;

• urgently support the strengthening of Ukraine’s air defence — the only way to stop these attacks.

This is not about sympathy. This is about where the line is drawn.

If terrorism, cold and darkness are accepted as weapons today, tomorrow this weapon will not only be used against Ukraine.

Statement of Youth Council of the Federation of Trade Unions of Ukraine

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