“No quick fix”: Energy expert warns Kyiv’s crisis could last until spring

Kyiv is experiencing what city officials are calling the most severe winter crisis since Russia's full-scale invasion began. Massive strikes on critical energy infrastructure, combined with freezing temperatures, have left hundreds of buildings without heat and residents with electricity for as little as three hours per day.

Mayor Vitali Klitschko has described the situation as extremely difficult. According to his data, approximately 400 high-rise buildings in the capital remain without heat following recent attacks. Power outage schedules have effectively stopped working—Kyiv residents may have electricity for only about 3 hours per day, while spending 10 or more hours without it.

"Even to ensure critical infrastructure—hospitals, municipal services, thermal stations—there are currently insufficient resources, and restoration work continues around the clock," Klitschko stated.

The government and president have declared a state of emergency in Ukraine's energy sector, a response to massive damage to energy system facilities and sharp temperature drops. Over 1,200 heating points have been deployed across the city where residents can warm up and charge devices.

The Kyiv City State Administration told Focus that municipal services are operating in anti-crisis mode. Officials recommend residents know the locations of heating and resilience points equipped with generators, have minimum supplies of drinking and technical water, long-lasting food products, charged power banks, flashlights and batteries.

The "Zhytomyr miracle" that isn't

While Kyiv survives in darkness and cold under constant enemy shelling, reports have emerged suggesting Zhytomyr experiences significantly fewer power outages—an apparent anomaly.

Oleh Popenko, head of the Union of Utility Consumers and energy expert, insists there is no "Zhytomyr miracle." He said that an audit in 2024 showed that during periods when Zhytomyr demonstrated relatively stable electricity supply, the broader region faced much harsher restrictions: "people in the districts sat for 18 hours without electricity, while Zhytomyr had power 24/7."

Popenko acknowledges that Zhytomyr has invested in certain areas of city infrastructure, showing better performance in heat and utility networks and lower losses in heating systems. But this does not equal a "miracle," he says, and doesn't eliminate regular utility problems.

"There is no 'Zhytomyr anomaly'—there are technical capabilities to deliver electricity and the condition of the networks," Popenko told Focus. The explanation lies primarily in technical factors: proximity to a powerful generation source (particularly the Rivne Nuclear Power Plant), absence of significant equipment damage (substations, transformer nodes), and overall balance—whether the region has a deficit or surplus.

Years of patchwork repairs

Popenko draws a direct line between the current crisis and years of piecemeal infrastructure maintenance. According to him, Kyiv has critically worn heating pipelines, power grids and water supply networks, with a fragmented approach to repairs.

"Instead of replacing hundreds of kilometers at once, they repair tens—30, 40, 80 kilometers per year, when significantly more is needed. That's why during frosts and strikes on energy facilities, the city gets a 'chain effect' of accidents: even after restoring the source, networks still need restoration, constantly breaking at weak points," Popenko said.

The expert is skeptical about claims of mini-thermal power plants and gas piston units as a "quick solution." Petro Panteleiev, acting first deputy head of the Kyiv City State Administration, recently announced that five cogeneration units—so-called mini-thermal power plants—have been installed in Kyiv. Two are already operational, while commissioning work continues on three others. The total capacity of these units is approximately 66 megawatts.

Popenko explains that units may be physically installed, but this doesn't mean they're connected and operational—connections, documents, and completion of technical work are required. According to him, even if the total capacity appears substantial, they cannot "save Kyiv" as a whole: at most, they can partially support boiler operations and critical facilities, reducing the problem's scale in certain districts.

"This should have been done not 'yesterday,' but systematically from the beginning of the full-scale war, and preferably even before it. Some cities began forming backup power sources much earlier, while Kyiv actively engaged in forming reserves only in late 2024, and some decisions regarding water utilities and pumping stations were made already in 2025," the expert continues.

No quick exit: scenarios and forecasts

Popenko's response to questions about scenarios for the coming weeks is blunt: there is no quick and simple way out of the energy and heating crisis for Kyiv, as it's impossible to do in a short time what hasn't been done for years. According to him, the city's resources are limited, and the support format through resilience points has physical limits—even a large number of such points cannot become a universal solution for a metropolis with millions of residents.

As a basic and priority action, the expert calls for targeted support for vulnerable population categories—pensioners, people with reduced mobility, people with disabilities, and large families. This means not only on-site assistance but also organizing temporary evacuation opportunities and clear support routes for those who physically cannot endure prolonged stays in cold apartments.

Reserve power sources at water supply facilities and sewage pumping stations play a critically important role, Popenko emphasizes. He references Dnipro's experience, where generators at pumping stations allowed avoiding mass water outages even during blackouts and significantly reduced humanitarian consequences.

"The situation with electricity and heating must be clearly separated. With electricity supply, some relief is possible closer to mid-March. But this won't be the result of quick or large-scale restoration of the entire energy system—rather, it's about a seasonal factor, particularly the growing contribution of solar generation, when solar power plants become more active. This can reduce the system's load but doesn't mean problems will completely disappear," Popenko says.

The heating situation is significantly more complicated. For buildings already left without heat, rapid changes shouldn't be expected in January. Even in cases where thermal power plants or boiler houses restore operations after shelling, the next and far more problematic stage is restoring heating networks. According to Popenko, these are the main "bottleneck" in Kyiv. For years, many sections received point repairs—30-50 meters instead of systematic replacement of kilometer-long segments. As a result, during frosts and loads, networks continue breaking one after another. As an example, the expert cites the Solomianskyi district, where, in his assessment, certain sections of heating pipelines need replacement not locally but over one to two kilometers.

"Under an optimistic scenario, to physically deliver heat to some problem buildings and simultaneously bring networks into proper condition will require at least two to three weeks. And that's without accounting for additional complications," the expert continues.

Popenko identifies the condition of buildings themselves after prolonged cold as a separate problem. In dozens of high-rises, internal building networks, radiators and risers may have burst—especially where water in systems wasn't drained in time. Such damage, the expert notes, is recorded even in relatively new buildings constructed after 2018.

In such cases, the discussion is no longer about operational heat restoration but about capital repairs that can last from six to eight months. That's why Popenko doesn't rule out that dozens, and possibly hundreds, of buildings in Kyiv may remain without full heating until the end of this winter. The final scale of the problem, according to him, will depend on the real condition of networks and internal systems in those approximately 400 buildings where heating problems have already been recorded.

Focus previously reported that the Solomianskyi and Darnytskyi districts of Kyiv are experiencing mass pipe bursts in residential buildings. Due to accidents, water is flooding the entrances of high-rises, and utility services cannot always arrive on site promptly.