Heating and Sanitation Crisis Hits Kyiv Neighborhood
For over two weeks, residents of apartment buildings on Akademika Zabolotnoho Street in Kyiv's Holosiivskyi district have been without heating, and for several days, they have also had no working sewage system. People are forced to use plastic bags in place of toilets. The housing maintenance organization, ZhEK-109, responsible for these buildings, is facing severe difficulties in fixing the breakdowns, as frozen pipes in technical floors are complicating repairs. The most critical situations are at 86 and 108 Akademika Zabolotnoho Street.
Heating in the building has been off since January 9, and residents have been unable to use their toilets since January 19. More than 20 buildings in the area remain without heat. The head of ZhEK-109, Olha Demianchuk, stated that her team consists of only seven people, which severely hampers their ability to carry out the necessary work.
"We have a complete catastrophe here. The walls offer no insulation, so everything is frozen. All the radiators on the entire fourth floor have burst. I have sewage floating in my bathtub. I've already moved out," commented Svitlana, a resident of building number 86.
Repair crews from Ukrzaliznytsia, the national railway, have arrived from Lviv and Dnipro to assist, but their presence hasn't solved all the issues. "We fix one spot, and it bursts in another. We often can't get into apartments because people have left, and the radiators inside are ruptured," the repair workers noted. Olha Demianchuk also appealed for cooperation from residents: "We are asking the residents for help. Organize yourselves, use heaters to warm the pipes. We thaw one section, and the pressure causes another to crack further."
The head of ZhEK-109 emphasized that welders and sewage specialists are on their way, but the situation remains critical for now. "We are organizing welders to follow the thawing crews, then the sewage teams. The railway workers are here now... but they are not plumbers. Now, teams of actual plumbers will start arriving to help," she added. This crisis is unfolding against the backdrop of a severe winter and ongoing Russian attacks on Ukraine's energy infrastructure.
Broader Capital Crisis and Consequences
This incident is part of a larger problem, with over 700 high-rise buildings in the Ukrainian capital still lacking heat. Separately, in the Kyiv region, two people were killed in a drone attack overnight. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy held an emergency meeting addressing the consequences of such attacks, highlighting the urgent need to resolve the capital's heating and sanitation issues.
The heating and sewage crisis in Kyiv underscores the severe challenges facing the city's municipal services during wartime and an energy crisis. The infrastructure failures are caused not only by technical difficulties but also by a critical lack of resources for emergency repairs. The absence of heat and basic living conditions in apartment buildings threatens the well-being of residents forced to seek alternative solutions. Given the scale of the problem, further actions by local authorities and utility services require an urgent and effectively organized response to aid the affected citizens.