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"It will not be easy," Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk said during an interview with a Ukrainian network. "I warn you right away that it won't be warm, but we won't freeze."

Kiev Mayor Vitaly Klitschko last week said households will be approximately 2 degrees Celsius (almost 4 degrees Fahrenheit) colder than in previous years and hot water, which already has been turned off for weeks at a time, will be less readily available.

Many people, like cello teacher Anna Goncharova, are trying other ways to keep the cold out. She has replaced her old windows, insulated the walls of her apartment, and bought a pile of blankets.

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"We're hoping we won't freeze," she said. "I truly hope that somehow we'll find an agreement with Russia. ... This can't happen in the civilized world."

Yatsenyuk said in early September that Ukraine had some 16.7 billion cubic meters of gas in storage, but the country will need approximately double that to survive the winter, and without Russian gas it would be left to rely on already minimal supplies from Europe.

Poland, Hungary and some other European countries have been selling gas, originally imported from Russia, back to Ukraine, but Moscow disapproves of the practice. Recently, some of these countries have had to stop supplying Ukraine with gas as they build their own reserves ahead of the winter and amid reports that Russia is tightening controls.

Relying on coal will also be more difficult this year. With much of Ukraine's industrial, coal-mining east ravaged by war with Russian-backed separatists, Kiev has had to resort to imports from countries as far away as South Africa.

The Ukrainian government has said it would cut energy supplies to industry by 30 percent before reducing supplies to the civilian population. That decision would likely send the Ukrainian economy, which could shrink by up to 10 percent this year, spiraling downward even faster.

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Ukraine braces for no Russian gas