‘Total torture’: Ukrainians gasp for oxygen amid blackouts

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Valentyn Mozgovy cannot breathe on his own, and keeping his ventilator powered during Ukraine’s blackouts has become a matter of life or death.

Regular power outages caused by Russian missile strikes have terrified tens of thousands of Ukrainians who rely on electricity to keep medical equipment running.

Mozgovy suffers from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a degenerative neurological condition that has left him paralysed and unable to breathe without assistance.

“He is alive, you see. That means I figured it out,” his wife, Lyudmyla Mozgova, told AFP in their apartment in the capital Kyiv.

Next to her, her husband was wrapped in a patterned duvet in a medically adapted bed, his face barely visible under the ventilator.

The Mozgovys have come a long way since the first long blackout after the targeted wave of strikes on energy infrastructure began in October.

Valentyn had to breathe on his own for ten excruciating minutes.