While Kyiv authorities tout the successful connection of hospitals to mobile heating units following missile strikes, they remain silent on the critical situation in the residential sector. Energy expert Oleg Popenko has warned that utility systems in thousands of high-rise buildings face the threat of total destruction.
According to the specialist, the municipal utility Kyivteploenergo has indeed deployed mobile boiler units to six medical facilities. While ensuring hospitals have heat is the right move, approximately 4,000 apartment blocks in the capital remain without heating. Hundreds of thousands of Kyiv residents are forced to endure cold apartments with outside temperatures hovering around zero.
Popenko emphasized that the current weather scenario is relatively mild. Should temperatures drop to -10 or -15 degrees Celsius, the city's aging housing stock—Soviet-era Khrushchyovkas and thin-walled panel buildings—will freeze instantly. The expert estimates that critical damage would occur within 24 to 48 hours: frozen risers, burst pipes and radiators, and structural damage to building floors.
The expert criticized the city administration's approach, accusing them of "playing roulette" with the property and lives of residents. Popenko noted that the city possesses the necessary resources—mobile heating units, equipment, and personnel—but utilizes them merely as "window dressing" for a few hospitals. Meanwhile, there is no public plan for saving residential neighborhoods, no emergency heating points, and no evacuation scenarios for the residents of the 4,000 affected buildings.
The specialist concluded that if severe frost strikes, it will not merely be a difficult winter but an infrastructure catastrophe that will destroy Kyiv from within. In Popenko's view, the responsibility lies with those who have spent years ignoring the need to prepare the city for the actual emergency scenarios of wartime.