The Moscow regional prosecutor’s office opened an inquiry into widespread outages affecting electricity, heating, and water supplies across the region. Officials from the prosecutor’s office are examining whether administrative offense cases should be pursued as part of the investigation.
According to the office, it is monitoring the timeliness of restoration work for power, heat, and water to residents, and overseeing the procedures for utility charges based on actual consumption reported by residents.
Widespread heating outages in the Moscow region
A sharp drop in temperatures during the New Year holidays strained the region’s infrastructure. On the night of January 4, temperatures plunged to as low as minus 30 degrees Celsius in parts of the Moscow region. The limited capacity of heating networks and electrical substations to handle the extreme load led to multiple failures, leaving many homes without heat or electricity. Through several Telegram channels, residents in at least 20 settlements reported heating problems.
Residents voiced frustration that authorities and utility providers did not respond promptly to reports or fix the situation in a timely manner.
In Podolsk, residents, including families with children and retirees, gathered in central areas to demand a rapid restoration of heating and accountability for those responsible. Reports indicated that indoor temperatures in some apartments remained well below comfortable levels, with many residents enduring temperatures around 10°C.
Local authorities established warming centers for affected residents and announced plans to restart boiler rooms by 21:00 Moscow time.
The head of Podolsk reported that a facility maintained by CJSC KSPZ was actively addressing a disruption in the heating line from the boiler room. He noted that the disruption is in a sensitive facility category, which requires additional time to resolve. Podolsk Regional Clinical Hospital No. 5 also experienced heat supply interruptions, and heat sources were deployed there.
Telegram updates indicated that residents in Khimki, Balashikha, and Lyubertsy were without heat and hot water. In Podolsk’s microdistricts, more than 20,000 people faced heating outages. Across Khimki, hundreds of houses faced electricity and heat shortages as transformers overloaded, water and sewage systems froze, and windows, doors, radiators, and boiler components suffered damage.
Despite ongoing repairs, residents reported that heat had not yet returned to many homes, even as workers advised that the causes of outages were being addressed incrementally.
Residents’ experiences and responses
A Solnechnogorsk resident described a situation of no heating or hot water and frequent power outages, noting that municipal assurances of restoration did not align with the lived reality. The resident also highlighted rising electricity costs and ongoing problems since the start of the heating season, with many homes relying on auxiliary heating devices.
Similar issues were reported in 2023, with residents saying that no lasting solution had been found at that time either.
A resident from SNT Sosnovy Bor described a prolonged outage where emergency services were slow to respond, with repeated attempts to reconnect services followed by renewed outages, culminating in a transformer fire described by the resident as a major hazard.
In Klimovsk, residents noted concerns about safety and the risk posed by freezing batteries at entrances, with some reporting that emergency services did not arrive promptly.
Voices from social networks questioned the authorities’ handling of the crisis, criticizing the decision to cut heating in the early hours and to maintain it only intermittently, which kept residents on edge as batteries and infrastructure failed.
With many radiators damaged, residents anticipated that heating would remain unavailable until significant repairs were completed.
Heating and power outages across the Moscow and Tula regions
A fire at a substation in Moscow on the morning of January 4 left more than twenty multi-story buildings in Otradnoye, Bibirevo, and surrounding districts without electricity and heating in the wake of the severe frost. Utility workers managed to restore power to several homes, though some residents remained without heat for a second day.
Reports from the city noted that conditions were improving, but a number of households still faced heat shortages as repairs continued. Local residents described freezing conditions inside buildings and expressed concerns about potential pipe bursts when power and heat returned fully.
By the evening of January 5, the Moscow mayor stated that the consequences of the substation incident had been addressed and that a steady power supply was in place for all homes. He added that twenty teams remained on duty to promptly address any additional complaints from residents.
Meanwhile, in the Tula region, residents of the villages Temyan and Skripovo endured near-total outages since December 31. Telegram channels reported apartment temperatures around 10°C during frosty periods. Some residents sought alternative accommodation or moved to other settlements amid ongoing utilities failures. Local residents described feeling neglected by officials and expressed a desire for timely connection and transparent service restoration timelines as the situation was treated as a regional emergency.