A typical sound of the suburbs echoes through the Saltivka district of northern Kharkiv — a low, humming buzz like a lawnmower. Yet nobody has their own garden in this vast Soviet housing project, and there’s barely a blade of grass in sight.

Instead, the high-pitched noise in Saltivka’s concrete jungle comes from Iranian-made Russian drones, whose cheap gasoline engines sound just like the average home lawnmower.

Russian forces have been pounding Kharkiv with them for the last month, aiming to knock out power supplies as the winter temperatures plummet to -13 Fahrenheit.

But as the drones aren’t known for their accuracy, many crash-land in Saltivka, whose high-rises on Kharkiv’s northern outskirts lie just 20 miles from the Russian border.

The latest one slammed into a five-story tower block on Tuesday afternoon, leaving the top two floors a blackened wreck and injuring six, including a 90-year old woman. By local standards, that made it a low casualty count — if by accident rather than design.

“I have lost count of how many times they’ve fired drones at us in the last month,” Kharkiv’s weary-looking fire brigade spokesman told The Post at the scene. “The Russians are attempting to hit critical infrastructure, but to be honest, there’s no real logic to their strikes at all — it can be kindergartens, schools, hospitals, whatever.

“It’s all just to try and destabilize us. But whenever it happens, our emergency services come together, we clean things and we replace windows. We are the best.”

Odd as it may seem, the spokesman takes a certain municipal pride in Kharkiv’s ability to take punishment. This may partly be due to the busloads of helpers who arrive at every bombing with a pop-up stall dispensing hot soup and tea.

But it may also reflect how Kharkiv — the regional capital of Ukraine’s northeast — is coping better than Kyiv, which has likewise been pounded by Russia during the recent cold snap.

On Monday, President Volodymyr Zelensky lashed out at Kyiv’s mayor, boxing champion-turned-politician Vitali Klitschko, for doing “not enough” to stop the blackouts, which left 500 apartment blocks still without heat.

Conditions here in Kharkiv are still grim, however. Last week, a combined drone and missile strike temporarily knocked out 80% of the city’s power and suspended subway services. And unlike Kyiv, which has not had Russian troops on its doorstep since the month-long siege at the start of war, Kharkiv also still has front lines very close. The nearest are about 15 miles north of Saltivka, down a snow-bound road where military check-points are draped with anti-drone nets.

For the Ukrainian soldiers manning trenches, even a flat without power might seem like a luxury. Maxim Rudyi does 20 days at a time in his dug-out in the frozen earth, with only a small gas heater for warmth.

“I use it mainly just for warming up my hands, in case I have to write or do anything fiddly,” he said, eating a pork sandwich at a roadside grill before heading in for another 20-day stint. “Otherwise, I just keep warm with the adrenalin — the nearest Russian positions are only about a kilometer away.”

Because of the threat from so-called loitering drones, which hang in the sky looking for targets, Rudyi and his comrades can no longer reach their positions by vehicle. Instead, they must trudge 15 miles through the snow, carrying 66 pounds of equipment. That in turn necessitates longer stays on the front line, with comrades sometimes hospitalized by frostbite. Even bathroom breaks are perilous.

“Taking a s–t outside is terrifying,” Rudyi grins. “You know a drone might come for you and it’s impossible to relax.”

Meanwhile, in Abu Dhabi, Zelensky met with American and Russian officials this week for yet another round of President Trump’s peace talks, which have now been dragging on for nearly a year. Ahead of the meeting, Zelensky told French TV that 55,000 Ukrainian soldiers have died.

The talks remain deadlocked over Vladimir Putin’s demand for Ukraine to give up four key towns in the eastern Donbas region, which Kyiv fears will simply whet Moscow’s appetite for more.

Not that anyone on Kharkiv’s front lines follows the talks much. Many haven’t even heard of Steve Witkoff, Trump’s golfing buddy turned presidential negotiator to Russia. And those who did pay attention at first have now largely lost interest due to the lack of progress.

Instead, in the time-honored tradition of trench warfare, all most Ukrainian soldiers can really afford to think about is the immediate patch of land they are defending. Which, in the coldest winter since the war, is no longer muddy steppe but one giant, shell-scarred ice rink.

The trenches begin to resemble bob-sleigh runs, making it hard to move without falling. And at times, the only thing that still seems to work are the soldiers’ Kalashnikovs — famous for being the most durable weapons in the world.

“Everything ceases to function in this weather — smart phone batteries die super-quickly, and vehicles often won’t start,” said “Gregory,” another soldier at the roadside grill. “I can’t begin to explain how tough it is — all we have is each other and our black humor.”

One soldier whose services are much in demand is “Sergei,” who worked as a civilian roadside mechanic before the war. Today, he runs a rather more dangerous breakdown service — answering calls from tanks and military vehicles that have broken down on the front lines.

“I was always known as a quick mechanic so when I volunteered for the army I was asked to the same job,” said Sergei, 33. “Fixing an old Soviet-era tank is often actually easier than doing a modern BMW or Lada, as they don’t have any fancy electronics that go wrong — some of those we use are 50 years old or more.”

In the extreme cold, one hazard is tanks’ metal caterpillar tracks freezing to the ground, leaving them stuck fast. No breakdown van can tow a 40-ton T-72. “The only thing that is strong enough to do that is another tank,” Sergei says.

One effect of extremely cold weather used to be that it led to a lull in the fighting, with both sides simply too cold to want to go on the offensive. With much of the warfare conducted now by remote-controlled drones, however, there is no real let-up.

“Everyone’s exhausted, and conditions are awful — we share the dug-outs with mice and rats, who also want to get away from the cold,” Sergei said. “Everybody just wants to finish the war, but I’m not sure that’s ever going to happen. The front lines are pretty static, and short of one side or other using an atom bomb, I don’t think anyone is going to prevail.”

True, Kharkiv has been through worse than this and survived. In the first days of the war, Russian troops poured over the border, only to be beaten back on the city’s outskirts, giving Ukraine one of its first major victories.

The Kremlin then mounted a second attempt to take Kharkiv in summer 2024, capturing the nearby border town of Vovchansk and slowly pushing to their current positions north of Saltivka. But thanks to the Russians’ superior supplies of manpower, shells and drones, nobody is sure how much longer the Ukrainians can hold out.

Feb. 24 will mark the fourth anniversary of the war — and four years during which Gregory has barely seen his daughter, who was four when it began. She is part of a new generation of war children whose fathers’ presence in their lives is mainly via patchy Zoom calls from the trenches.

“I’d say I’ve seen her no more than about two months in total over the last four years,” he said. “The rest of the time I’m just a Dad online. I’d really like all this to end soon, but do I honestly think it will? No.”

Colin Freeman is the author of “The Mad and The Brave: The Untold Story of Ukraine’s Foreign Legion.”