EU Ambassador to Ukraine Katarína Mathernová Visits an “Invincibility Point” in Kyiv, Hands Over 447 Emergency Generators

EU Ambassador to Ukraine Katarína Mathernová during her visit to one of the “Invincibility Point” in Kyiv: 

I met Iryna at an “invincibility point” in Kyiv. She was sitting there with a cup of hot tea and her computer, trying to warm her frozen body.

Invincibility points are tent shelters set up by the government - with  & other donor support - where people can hide from the freezing cold. And recharge. Their bodies, their spirits and their telephones.

It is so cold in Iryna’s apartment that she cannot stay there during the day. For two weeks she has been left without heat and without electricity!

Tens of thousands of people in Kyiv come to the invincibility points these days. Children shivering with cold, elderly people. People simply frozen in their own homes.

Russia in the meantime continues to brazenly attack energy infrastructure.

Recently Russia sent swarms of drones again against Odesa. Several of them hit residential buildings, injuring dozens of civilians. And again, damaging energy facilities — this time also in the Lviv region.

The result is always the same - darkness, cold, freezing apartments, hospitals operating in emergency mode.

Today, I personally handed over 447 emergency generators from the EU Strategic reserves to the Ukrainian Ministry for Development of Communities and Territories. They are truly needed in Ukraine this winter.

For hospitals, emergency services, and for residential buildings.

The invincibility points are just as necessary. There are around 160 of them in Kyiv. Some stand alone; elsewhere — especially on the hardest-hit left bank of the Dnipro — entire “tent cities” have sprung up.

Most of them have psychologists helping people cope with their traumas.

There are spaces for children filled with colouring books and crayons

And there is always hot tea!

As I was leaving, I was reminded once again how incredibly fortunate people living in peace are. Those who sleep without sirens, without fear, in the warmth of their heated apartments.

I am not writing this as a reproach.

I am writing this so that we never forget what Ukrainians have to endure to protect European peace.