Several sources reported that municipal services in Kyiv began preparing buildings with central heating on Friday in case service may not be restored soon.
Former lawmaker Viktoriya Voytsitska (2014-19), now an activist, said municipal services are draining water from Kyiv’s central heating systems to prevent the system from being destroyed by extreme cold.
“In Kyiv, they are beginning to drain water from buildings that are heated via centralized heat supply. This is a direct consequence of the latest attacks by the Russian Federation on the capital’s heat generation facilities,” she wrote. “Temperature conditions require draining the water in the absence of a centralized heat supply. Otherwise, pipes will burst, and the entire centralized heat supply infrastructure will be destroyed.”
Russia’s overnight combined strike pounded Kyiv’s heating and energy grid for hours, leaving over 6,000 households without heat as temperatures are expected to dip to nearly -20°C (-4°F) in the coming days.
Kyiv Mayor Vitaly Klitschko has advised locals to leave the capital for areas with power and heating if possible.
Voytsitska echoed Klitschko’s warning, saying it will soon be “impossible” to stay in the apartments due to the severe cold.
“This means that hundreds of thousands of families will find themselves in a situation where, in a couple of days, it will be impossible to stay in their apartments, especially for families with children,” she added.
Several housing maintenance offices and heads of homeowners’ associations (OSBBs) across Kyiv, mostly on the left bank, confirmed this to Kyiv Post.
“Yes, we are draining the water. When heating will be restored is unknown. We are not being informed about the seriousness of the damage,” one building committee head said.
The information was also confirmed by former Minister of Housing and Communal Services Oleksiy Kucherenko, who acknowledged the shutdown of the systems on his Facebook page.
These measures acknowledge that restoring heat supply – specifically the operation of Combined Heat and Power Plants (CHPs) 5 and 6 – will not be possible soon, creating a risk of utilities freezing.
By the morning of Jan. 9, the temperature, which had hovered around 0°C (32°F) for a month, dropped to -9°C (14°F). It is expected that it will fall even lower, to -15°C (5°F), in the coming days.
“And this is a problem, because restarting damaged CHP units after repairs, even in the absence of new strikes, will be difficult at temperatures below 0°C,” a power engineer source told Kyiv Post.
At present, the exact number of buildings without central heating is unknown, as some capacity remains intact and many buildings have autonomous heating or small boiler houses still in operation.
Mayor Klitschko estimated that up to 50% of the city’s apartments are without heat, with the left bank hardest hit.
“Half of Kyiv’s apartment buildings – almost 6,000 – are currently without heat supply due to critical infrastructure in the capital being damaged by a massive enemy attack,” Klitschko wrote on Telegram.
“We are doing everything to achieve this as quickly as possible. I also appeal to residents of the capital who have the opportunity to temporarily leave the city, where there are alternative sources of power and heat, to do so,” he added.
At the same time, former housing minister Kucherenko says that it may be possible to prevent a prolonged heating shutdown.
“For now, don’t rush to go anywhere…. A decision will be made in the coming hours,” he added.
The reaction from opinion leaders was swift. Many said the overnight bombardment of Kyiv with dozens of missiles and hundreds of drones amounted to an act of genocide, noting that the targets were exclusively civilian and linked to energy infrastructure.
“For almost four years of war, the Russians have ‘heroically’ finally ‘defeated’ Kyiv CHP-5, spending thousands of drones and hundreds of various missiles on it. ‘Grandfathers’ would be proud, yeah! Most countries combined do not have such a quantity of missile-and-drone weapons in their stockpiles, and the Muscovites spent such an arsenal so that some Kyiv residents would have no heat in their radiators,” blogger and volunteer Serhiy Naumovych wrote.
“Now this Kyiv plant will temporarily be unable to supply heat to the homes of the capital’s residents.”
Meanwhile, the situation in the suburbs appears to be better, as many homes have autonomous gas heating systems or individual solid-fuel boilers.