In 2022, Gazprom released a commercial in which it “threatened” Europe with a global freeze. At the same time, Russia carried out massive missile strikes on the critical energy infrastructure of Ukraine (damaging about 40% of the Ukrainian energy infrastructure) to break the will of Ukrainians to resist, “cut down” Ukraine, and force Ukrainians to live without water, electricity and heating.
But something went wrong. Rather, everything. On the threshold of 2023-2024, with the onset of winter frosts, when the thermometer had not yet approached critically low indicators, a large part of Russia, even the elite suburbs of Moscow, found themselves without heat and electricity in their apartments.
The favourite secret weapon of the Russians – “General Moroz” hit its targets.
Initially, about 20,000 people in the cities of Klimovsk, Lyubertsy, and Podolsk in the Moscow region were left without heating, in some cases for several weeks. The main cause was the breakdown of a boiler at a local ammunition production factory for the Russian army, which simultaneously provided heat to Klimovsk and its surroundings. Although the culprits were quickly found, “appointed” and punished, arresting the head of the above-mentioned boiler house Chikov and the deputy head of Podolsk Ryazantsev, the solution to the problem became a benchmark in recent times.
Instead of looking for the causes of the trouble and correcting it, they look for and repress the shooters, so the prosecutor’s office, the FSB and manual courts have become the main actors, and not, say, officials from relevant ministries.
Next, naturally, a wave of global freezing stormed Russia.
Residents of 234 houses in Yekaterinburg survive for several days without heating. Eight kindergartens and two schools remained without heat. In Penza, 42 apartment buildings and a medical facility were left without heating. More than three thousand residents of 18 apartment buildings in Vladivostok were left without a heat supply.
Residents of the Reductorny microdistrict in Makhachkala even protested, blocking the road due to constant power outages.
What is symptomatic is that interruptions to heating and electricity supply suddenly began in the occupied, so-called new, territories of Russia in the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions and, as it were, the standard Mariupol, which is being rebuilt according to reports and media.
This is only the tip of the iceberg of huge problems that are falling upon the Russians and coming out through the densely cleared information sphere.
After all, the housing and communal services system in Russia is in a deplorable situation. According to official data alone, 159.6 trillion rubles had to be invested to keep the system in working order and partially modernize it until 2030.
At the State Council in 2022, Putin announced a “comprehensive programme for the modernization of housing and communal services” for 5 years, although already then government officials complained that the deficit of funds for modernization amounted to 4.6 trillion rubles.
Considering that 30.8 to 45.6% – more than 900 thousand kilometres of networks – need to be replaced already. At the same time, before “SVO”, less than 2.2% of worn-out networks were renewed every year, and at least 3% were worn out.
However, with the beginning of “SVO”, priorities shifted sharply. Money flies into the funnel of war. The war in Ukraine costs the Russian budget approximately one billion dollars per month. With these funds, it was possible to modernize all boiler houses in the country.
But, despite the mass accidents, the government made a brilliant decision – to increase the military budget to a record for 2024, of course, at the expense of a sharp reduction in social spending and cuts in federal budget spending on housing and communal services.
Yes, only in 2024-2026, budget expenditures for housing and communal services will be reduced by 57%.
And taking into account the fact that “General Frost” has an important ally – “General corruption”, according to the expert in the case of State Duma deputy Aleksey Zhuravlev: “the cause of accidents cannot be considered frost… which is not abnormal for the country”, but those “who signed false reports that the pipes were replaced and the heating was working”, behind the beautiful facade of the “Potemkin village”, even in the exhibition and demonstration suburb of Moscow, the pipes have burst and the roof will soon be torn off.
It seems that, as the Military Industry once buried the Soviet Union, now the housing and communal services will fill the ruins of Russia with shit and freeze it for beauty.
So “everything goes according to plan.” The goals of “SVO” are fulfilled. It’s just that now Putin, “General Moroz” and corruption are mercilessly hitting their own, of course, so that strangers are afraid…
Yuriy Syrotyuk
