Heat is on for Ukraine elections

KIEV — A few days before Sunday's parliamentary elections in Ukraine, Svetlana Borispolets was looking forward to her first hot shower in months. The timing may not be coincidental.

Ukraine's pro-Western President Petro Poroshenko ordered the country's Soviet-era heating plants to restart this week after idling since June to preserve gas for the winter.

Sunday is a key step for Ukraine to secure the political and economic reforms that many people here fought last winter for when they ousted the previous pro-Russian regime, triggering a massive conflict that is still simmering today.

Borispolets, 75, like most other Ukrainians, has been living without hot water or heat since June, but she insists it's worth the price for closer integration with Europe.

"We want to live free," she says. "We're optimistic and we think everything will be good."

Poroshenko called the parliamentary elections on Oct. 26 early to consolidate power and boost ties with the West as well as push through a modernization plan. Some opinion polls show his Petro Poroshenko Bloc party will do well enough to allow him to form a new government unaided.

The ballot is the culmination of a process sparked by February's ouster of President Viktor Yanukovych, who threatened to bring Ukraine closer to Russia. But Ukraine's gas crisis illustrates the nation's dependence, as well as its determination to break free from, the powerful country next door.

Russia supplies Ukraine with a sizable amount of its gas. It has raised gas prices, thereby restricting supply ever since Ukraine rejected Russian President Vladimir Putin's offer last winter to continue providing Ukraine with cheap gas and billions of dollars in other incentives if it reneged on an agreement to pursue closer relations with the European Union.

That's why Borispolets has been heating a large pot of water over her kitchen stove, and carrying it to the bathtub for a once-a-week splash bath. She spends about a third of her $100-a-month pension on other utilities.

Borispolets is no stranger to hardship. She endured near-famine conditions during World War II, when a meal of preserved fish heads was considered a luxury.

But Borispolets got teary-eyed when discussing Russia.

"We always considered Russians to be our brothers," she said. "Nobody would ever think he (Putin) would attack Ukraine."

Kiev and Moscow blame each other for the fighting in eastern Ukraine that has killed at least 3,000 people, and hostilities between pro-Russian separatists and Ukrainian government forces continue despite a cease-fire.

Now, Ukrainian leaders are scrambling to make sure the country has enough fuel supplies to make it through the winter.

In September, Ukrainian energy company Naftogaz said it reached an agreement with Slovakia to buy back some of the gas that flows from Russia through Ukraine to the EU. But this "reverse-flow" supply will provide only a third of the 30 billion cubic meters of gas Ukraine says it needs from Europe each year to make up for the Russian shortfall.

Ukraine's aging heating system isn't helping the situation. It's so decrepit that underground hot water mains melt the snow on the surface above, and every year there are reports of burst pipes causing sinkholes.

"We didn't modernize because we got cheap gas from Russia," said Pinchuk, president of the Ukrainian Development Center for Foreign Economic Relations, a think tank.

Almost 36 million people have been registered to vote in the elections. Poll officials say 15 out of 32 district election commissions in the eastern regions of Luhansk and Donetsk will not be operating over security concerns.

Speaking in a televised address Saturday, Poroshenko said the election would lead to a "full reset of power" and enable the formation of a reform-minded legislature.

"It is very difficult to press on the gas pedal with reforms when hundreds of deputies are simultaneously and in a coordinated fashion slamming the brakes," he said.

Political consultant Oleksandr Kopil said there are two impulses motivating voters.

"The first is for stability and a certain dose of security, so that things at least don't become worse," Kopil said. "The second demand, which may have less of a following, is for a continuation of the revolution — stark reforms and changes."

Contributing: The Associated Press