By Hanna Trepaliuk | Project Leader
The winter of 2025–2026 was one of the most brutal testing periods for the civilian population of Odesa. Russia carried out 14 massive attacks on Ukraine's critical energy infrastructure, deploying over 700 missiles and drones. Odesa was among the most affected regions - targeted almost daily by Shahed drone strikes. At least 12 civilians were killed in Odesa during the winter months alone. Residential buildings, schools, medical facilities, and critical infrastructure were hit repeatedly.
The attacks did not only destroy buildings - they knocked out heating, electricity, and hot water for thousands of families during temperatures as low as –15°C. For elderly residents, families with young children, and people with disabilities, these conditions became life-threatening.
Our Response
From January 2026, the Way Home team conducted 25 nighttime emergency deployments to impact sites across Odesa - arriving within approximately one hour of receiving an alert, despite air raid warnings, blocked roads, and complete darkness from power outages.
At each site, our team provided:
Reaching Families in the Dark
We provided targeted humanitarian assistance to 156 families facing extreme conditions due to prolonged blackouts. Each package was assembled individually - based on the specific needs of that household: the number of people, their ages, health conditions, and whether young children were present.
Assistance included power banks, blankets and electric blankets, chemical heating pads for elderly and immobile individuals, thermoses, portable stoves, and fuel for cooking without electricity or gas.
We also supported 18 mobile warming centers deployed by the Odesa City Military Administration, supplying food and hot drinks to people who had nowhere else to go - including residents of destroyed buildings and those whose apartments had been without heat for more than five days, with indoor temperatures dropping.
A Roof Over Their Heads
When families lost their homes entirely, we opened our doors. 9 families displaced by shelling were transported directly to our shelters in the middle of the night - some arriving from under the rubble with nothing but what they could carry in the darkness. We provided them with safe accommodation, hot meals, psychological support, and ongoing assistance with urgent needs.
Anna, 75
Anna spent her entire life in Odesa. For over 45 years she worked at a telephone exchange, built a quiet life, and eventually purchased her own apartment.
She remembers February 24, 2022 with painful clarity. She saw three missiles in the sky that morning and understood immediately that something terrible had begun. For the next four years she lived with constant anxiety - hearing explosions, seeing the aftermath of strikes across the city - but held onto the hope that her building would be spared.
On the night of April 15, 2026, a drone struck the sixth floor of her building. Windows shattered, doors were blown out. Emergency services arrived quickly, and residents were eventually allowed back inside to assess the damage. While Anna was on her floor, a missile struck nearby. The blast blew out her window frames again, rendering the apartment uninhabitable. As she made her way out, she found her neighbor lying unconscious in the hallway, covered in blood. Residents carried him out on a door to the waiting ambulance. He did not survive.
Anna received first aid at the scene. By midday she had been brought to Way Home. She is currently staying at our transit center and has received medical support. She is now searching for new housing - the apartment that was her only home is gone.
Despite everything, Anna holds herself with quiet dignity. She has not lost hope.
Larisa, 70
Larisa spent most of her life in Dnipro. When the full-scale invasion began in 2022, she threw herself into volunteer work - coordinating with organizations, compiling lists of people who needed humanitarian aid, arranging support for those who had no one else.
In 2023, she made a decision she had long dreamed of: she moved to Odesa, bought an apartment, and began what she hoped would be a new chapter by the sea.
On the night of April 15–16, 2026, a drone struck her house at the sixth floor. She remembers the screaming, the fire, the shattered glass, the thick smoke. Residents fled to the street and waited.
In the early hours of April 16, while people had returned to their apartments, two more missiles struck the building. Larisa was woken by a powerful blast. Her apartment door had warped in the frame and would not open. Neighbors broke through and helped her out.
She was brought to Way Home that same morning. Her apartment has been significantly damaged and is currently uninhabitable. Despite everything, Larisa is already actively searching for rental housing and work - determined to return to independent life.
Thank You
These months were some of the hardest we have faced. But they also showed us - again - that even in the darkest moments, people can show up for one another. We were able to be there because you were with us.
We continue because Odesa continues to resist and the families around us need support.
By Hanna Trepaliuk | Project Leader
By Hanna Trepaliuk | Project Leader
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