As winter approaches, so does a renewed threat in Ukraine. In early October, Russia began heavily targeting the country’s critical infrastructure, namely electrical grids and power plants. As the weather turns cold, giant swaths of the country are without power, electricity, or heat. At night, Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine and once home to millions of people, disappears into the dark. People leave blankets and flashlights in elevators for those who get stuck when the power goes out. Outages can last for hours. “This is what the ambient presence of war looks like,” writes Andrea Stanley. “Not the beginning or the end of a conflict, but that uncomfortable middle part where so much is unknown. In the short moments when their phones could snag a signal, or when their computers had enough power, I heard from a group of Ukrainian women about what it’s like to live through this moment, and how they plan to survive what comes next.” Read her story of Ukrainian survival in the face of war at the link in bio.