Kyiv zoo battles to keep animals warm as city shivers through power crisis

Staff feed firewood five times daily to keep the primates’ cage at 20°C

East African striped hyena gather in an aviary, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in zoo in Kyiv, Ukraine Jan 22, 2026. REUTERS/Gleb Garanich

Staff at Kyiv's zoo are toiling around the clock to keep Tony the gorilla and other animals warm as Russian air strikes target Ukraine's energy infrastructure amid freezing winter temperatures.

Kyiv's Mayor Vitali Klitschko repeated his appeal on Friday to citizens to seek temporary shelter outside the city amid fears of further strikes. That is not an option for 51-year-old Tony, however, or the zoo's other long-suffering residents.

"You can tell people to go to the countryside but I can't say that to Tony," said zoo chief Kyrylo Trantin of Ukraine's oldest gorilla.

"He doesn't have a grandmother in the countryside... where he could stay."

Five times a day, staff deliver firewood to a constantly burning stove to keep the primate's cage at a comfortable 20 degrees Celsius.

Repeated Russian air attacks on Ukraine's energy system in recent weeks have thrown millions of people in Kyiv and other cities into sometimes lengthy periods of darkness and cold.

Emergency outages, worsened by temperatures as low as -18 degrees Celsius (-0.4 degrees Fahrenheit), have also disrupted water supplies.

At the zoo, generators rumble day and night to provide warmth to the animals, which include horses, bison and an elephant.

Staffer Viktoriia Sluzhenko said the zoo keeps enough water reserves to cover the elephant's need of 150 litres per day.

"We constantly fill the tanks so that we can survive in autonomous mode for three days," she said.

The responsibility of keeping other living creatures alive takes a heavy toll on staff also preoccupied with their own survival, said Trantin, as Russia's war nears its four-year mark with no signs of abating.

"Every day is a battle for warmth and power," Trantin added.