Fewer than 20% of Kyiv's apartment buildings remain without heating amid winter crisis, mayor Klitschko says
Editor's note: This story was updated with a quote from Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko urging residents to leave the city because of the extremely difficult heating and power situation.
Kyiv's utilities workers have reconnected 650 high-rise apartment buildings in the past day, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said on Jan. 23.
Yet 1,940 of the Ukrainian capital's apartment buildings remain vulnerable to winter cold, Klitschko said in a Telegram post. That is about 16% of the roughly 12,000 apartment buildings tallied by the Kyiv municipal government.
Major Russian attacks on Kyiv on Jan. 9 and 20 in conjunction with a cold snap that has seen temperatures bouncing around -10° C (14 °F) have wreaked havoc on local infrastructure, with blackouts and water cut-offs rolling across the city, as well as heavily restricted heating even in buildings still connected to the grid.
Most of the buildings still without heat are on Kyiv's left bank east of the Dnipro River, rather than in the city's historic and governmental center on the right bank.
Anticipating strains on energy infrastructure, Klitschko earlier urged Kyiv residents to leave the city if they had anywhere else to go. The mayor repeated the call on Jan. 23, as some homes had gone nearly two weeks without heating.
"I am addressing the residents and speaking honestly: the situation is extremely difficult, and this may not be the most difficult moment yet," Klitschko said, also urging people to stock up on food, medicine, and water.
"Those who still have options to leave the city, where there are alternative sources of power and heating, should not dismiss them," he added.
As of Jan. 21, Klitschko said 600,000 had taken him up on it out of a population of approximately 3.6 million.
The crisis of Kyiv's energy has nonetheless set Klitschko and President Volodymyr Zelensky at odds.
Zelensky blamed Klitschko, a former professional boxer and high-profile political rival, for the city's lack of preparedness for an emergency caused by Russian attacks on the energy sector and severe frost.
The subject is particularly fraught following corruption charges against key members of Zelensky's cabinet at the federal level over a scheme to steal money from funds meant to protect power plants.
