Kyiv on the brink of resources: what will happen to heat, light, and water until the end of winter
Kyiv • UNN
Kyiv faces unstable electricity supply and risks to heating; critical facilities operate on generators, but residential areas are not guaranteed. The city receives assistance from international partners, but problems with infrastructure and winter preparations remain.
Kyiv is going through winter with unstable electricity supply and uneven risks to heating: the city keeps critical facilities on generators and mobile heating solutions, but there is no guarantee of continuity for residential areas. The most vulnerable points are transformer infrastructure, the dependence of high-rise buildings on pumps and the condition of internal building networks, as well as barriers that hinder the development of distributed generation.
Since the beginning of the year, Russian troops have been launching massive missile and drone attacks on Kyiv, aiming to destroy the capital's energy system and make the metropolis uninhabitable, at least during the cold season.
After just one such attack on January 24, according to information from Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko, almost 6,000 high-rise buildings were left without heating.
Most of them are those that have already been connected or attempted to be connected to heating twice after the shelling on January 9 and 20. There are also problems with water supply on the left bank and partially on the right bank.
According to him, the most difficult situation has developed for residents of the Troieshchyna microdistrict.
Analyst and expert Oleksiy Kushch, speaking about the situation in the capital, states directly: locally in Pozniaky (a microdistrict in the Darnytskyi district of the capital, - ed.) the situation with electricity and heating is catastrophic. And this applies to segments of development.
For example, the building on (street, - ed.) Pchilky 2, which was hit by a UAV in the summer (UAV, - ed.). This building and some others around it have (the longest, - ed.) outages. The building is practically freezing and no one cares.
On social media, Kyiv residents also write about difficult living conditions. In some buildings, there is no electricity for several days. There are problems with water supply, because due to the lack of electricity, pumps do not supply water to high-rise buildings. In residents' apartments, temperatures are low because the heating is not working. In combination with the frosts of the last two weeks, this has led to pipes and batteries bursting in buildings. People's homes are being flooded with water.
The capital is trying to help:
- Poland transferred 130 generators to the city with a total capacity of 2,376 kW. Funds for the equipment were collected by Polish volunteers. In 10 days, Poles donated 8 million zlotys (almost 2 million euros);
- the Belgian federal development agency "Enabel" transferred 22 mobile boiler houses and three generators (to Kyiv, Odesa, and Fastiv) with a capacity of 200 and 40 kW;
- the Czech organization Post Bellum also purchased a generator for the city's needs. And the NGO Bevar Ukraine (Denmark) transferred industrial uninterruptible power supplies (100 and 80 kW) and a 22 kW generator for a capital hospital.
In addition, the Kyiv prosecutor's office is currently conducting 12 criminal proceedings, within which, in particular, they are checking how properly the city ensured the protection of critical infrastructure facilities.
In particular, the investigative department of the Main Directorate of the National Police in Kyiv, under the procedural guidance of the Kyiv City Prosecutor's Office, is investigating proceedings opened on January 15, 2026, under Part 2 of Article 367 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine. It concerns the alleged official negligence of officials of the executive body of the Kyiv City Council (KMDA), its structural divisions, and subordinate enterprises in 2022–2025 during the preparation of work and protection of the capital's critical infrastructure, including during public procurement. The purpose of these actions was to counteract the negative consequences of damage to critical facilities in the context of Russia's full-scale aggression.
Separately, the Pechersk police department, under the procedural guidance of the Pechersk District Prosecutor's Office of Kyiv, is investigating another proceeding (also from January 15, 2026) under Part 4 of Article 191 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine. It concerns the possible overestimation of the cost of purchasing cogeneration units and the work on their connection, which was carried out in 2024–2025 by communal enterprises under the management of the KMDA.
Also, in 10 other proceedings conducted by territorial police units under the guidance of district prosecutor's offices, the actions of officials of communal enterprises, management companies, and district state administrations in Kyiv regarding preparations for winter are being checked. This includes, in particular, the maintenance of roads and sidewalks in the autumn-winter period of 2025–2026 and the city's readiness for prolonged power and heat outages.
UNN, together with an expert, investigated whether all this will help save Kyiv and what problems citizens will face in the near future.
Heat on the edge, light on pause: what Kyiv residents are facing as winter ends
Oleksandr Serhiienko, director of the Analytical and Research Center "Institute of the City," who gave an exclusive comment to the editorial office, says: the risks to heat and electricity are determined not so much by comfort as by the basic viability of the city.
The situation is extremely critical, as key heat sources are not operating at full capacity, and the duration of power outages is increasing.
The most sensitive problem for the city right now is heat supply. According to the UNN interlocutor, TPP-5 and TPP-6 are operating far from full capacity. This is what creates the main line of tension: "half of Kyiv is provided with heat supply, half is in a very risky zone, to put it mildly."
However, in parallel, Kyiv is trying to rely on existing backup sources. Oleksandr Serhiienko reminds:
"The city has about 180 boiler houses, 12 of which are district-level with a capacity of over 80 megawatts, as well as numerous boiler houses at schools, factories, and some enterprises. Including medical ones. Many hospitals have such boiler houses to be independent of the city."
A separate tool for overcoming the crisis is mobile solutions.
Kyiv, as the expert notes, has 69 mobile heating stations that can be connected to the place where there is a need for it.
He gives an example of operational reinforcement after the strikes.
On the 10th, for example, after the attack on the 9th, the very next day Kyiv powered 13 mobile heating boiler houses... for a little less than 12 hospitals. That is, Kyiv's key hospitals are provided with heat.
Electricity on the verge of responsibility of the state and network operator
The director of the Analytical and Research Center "Institute of the City" makes a harsh conclusion regarding the current dynamics.
We all see that the situation is also critical. There are very long periods when there is no light, and the periods when there is light are shortening.
However, the city managed to cover some of the needs of critical infrastructure.
We have over 1,100 generators of various capacities that ensure the operation of critical infrastructure facilities. Such as hospitals, schools, and all that.
But he immediately emphasizes that there is a limit to the endurance of backup capacities.
To ensure the operation of the trolleybus or tram network, and even more so the subway, such electricity may not be enough, because generators "are not designed for such power as is necessary for a functional subway."
At the same time, speaking about Kyiv's electricity supply, the expert differentiates responsibility between levels of government and companies.
He directly emphasizes:
"As for electricity supply, it is entirely the responsibility of the central government."
According to Oleksandr Serhiienko, the state company "Ukrenergo" is responsible for supplying electricity to the capital, and the local company DTEK - Kyiv Electric Grids is responsible for distribution in the city.
High-rise buildings in blackout: what are the weak points of the capital's residential sector
The most common household consequences of blackouts in apartment buildings are interruptions in water supply. The expert explains their mechanics:
If the electricity is cut off, all pumping stations for water supply may not work. High-rise buildings are especially vulnerable: in buildings with more than 10 floors, additional groups of pumps are installed. If there is no electricity, these pumps cannot work.
A separate block is the readiness for emergency situations of buildings where residents have created condominiums and invested in autonomy. The UNN interlocutor describes urban programs as those that existed before the war and says that the city compensated condominiums for the purchase of generators, energy storage devices, and solar panels.
He also speaks directly about the financial incentive:
"This is a 70/30 program: the city compensates 70% of the costs. 4.5 thousand such projects have been implemented in recent years."
A separate line of risks is the technical condition of house networks. The expert says that in engineering there is no magical breakdown out of nowhere.
Any engineering system requires constant supervision and constant technical maintenance. But it is the massive connection of additional devices that can make old problems critical. When people massively start connecting electric heaters, this old wiring may simply not withstand it.
He further details that protective automatics will trip, or other technical elements may break. He draws a simple conclusion: any old problems can become critical and play a fatal role there.
Why Kyiv was vulnerable to Russian attacks
In assessing the capital's preparedness for attacks, Oleksandr Serhiienko focuses on the transformer infrastructure. He calls it a key link, without which even a working station has no effect.
"The station generates electricity, but in order to supply it to the grid, transformers must be working. If they are removed from power, the station cannot work at all."
Further, the expert criticizes government structures:
"Unfortunately, the Government, the Ministry of Energy, did not provide reliable protection for these transformer groups. This also applies to the weakness of the 'second level' of protection. At the beginning of this season, only half of these transformer groups were protected," states the director of the Analytical and Research Center "Institute of the City."
The problem, according to him, also concerns transformers in distribution networks. The expert gives the scale: operators have more than three and a half thousand transformers. And adds:
"The Ministry of Energy openly says that they are not able to provide protection, and probably this should be the function of DTEK."
But, in his estimation, the private player has no motivation to invest.
For them, it's extra money to spend, which they don't want to spend on this protection.
In conclusion, he formulates the thesis about a gap in the quality of preparation locally.
Local authorities, they were better prepared, more prepared, and the central government did not fulfill its obligations.
Could alternative generation have saved Kyiv and why didn't it happen?
Another area that could reduce vulnerability during blackouts is the development of small and medium-sized private generation with the ability to feed electricity into the grid.
Oleksandr Serhiienko expresses the following opinion:
"The central government failed to create an alternative electricity generation system, where a private owner can buy a powerful generator, connect to the grid, and supply electricity to the grid."
The key barriers are the complexity of procedures and the economics of connection.
This is a rather complex bureaucratic procedure. And DTEK, as a monopolist, is not interested in the emergence of competitors... they put spokes in the wheels.
Among the specific figures, he names advance payments:
"To introduce 1 MW of capacity, you only need to pay an advance payment of 5 thousand euros, and the connection costs can be even higher: and 10 thousand for 1 MW."
In his opinion, the regulator could have set stricter "ceilings" for such payments, but this has not been done, and network operators are not interested in the emergence of new competitive sources in the system.
In practical terms, the picture is as follows: the city covers critical facilities with generators and mobile heating solutions, but household risks for residential areas remain high primarily due to dependence on electricity (water, elevators, heating in some buildings) and due to the technical condition of internal networks.
For Kyiv residents, this means two things.
Firstly, the readiness of the building (condominium, availability of backup power, condition of electrical panels) can be no less important than the outage schedule in the area.
Secondly, systemic solutions - protection of energy infrastructure and normal rules for connecting distributed generation - remain a critical condition, without which the city will continue to live in a mode of "patching up" consequences, rather than reducing risks.