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Headline: How Soviet urban planning is helping Russia freeze Ukraine
Short Summary: Russian missile and drone strikes in January 2026 targeted Ukraine's centralized heating plants, leaving about one million people freezing during a harsh winter, exploiting vulnerabilities from Soviet-era urban planning.
Extended Summary: Throughout January 2026, amid plummeting temperatures below -15°C, Russian attacks on Ukraine's heating infrastructure intensified, with the strike on 24 January in Kyiv alone cutting off heating to roughly 6,000 apartment blocks. This is the third such episode in two weeks, also affecting other cities like Zaporizhzhia, where about three-quarters of residents depend on central heating. The attacks exploit the legacy of Soviet urban planning, where large 'panelki' apartment blocks rely heavily on centralized heating plants known as TETs. These plants produce both electricity and heat and are thus critical to civilian life. Disabling them causes cascading failures impacting electricity, water, and heating simultaneously. Ukrainian experts describe this as a deliberate Russian tactic that had not been previously used extensively in earlier winters of the war. The Ukrainian government plans to lessen this vulnerability by shifting to individual heating solutions, but decades of infrastructure make this a long-term challenge. The tactic represents a form of hybrid warfare using energy and infrastructure attacks to inflict civilian suffering and pressure Ukrainian society.
Since late 2025 and into January 2026, Russian forces have launched repeated attacks targeting Ukraine's energy infrastructure, especially heating plants supplying communal heating in major cities like Kyiv and Zaporizhzhia. These attacks have left about a million Ukrainians without heating amidst plunging winter temperatures below -15°C. The capital Kyiv experienced strikes overnight on 24 January 2026, where approximately 6,000 apartment blocks lost heating, leaving hundreds of thousands exposed to freezing conditions. Soviet-era urban planning with large communal heating systems makes Ukrainian cities vulnerable to such attacks, as heating plants (known as TETs) supply heat and electricity to many residents centrally. As these plants are large concentrated targets, their destruction or disruption by Russian missile and drone strikes causes widespread hardship. Ukraine's government acknowledges this vulnerability and is planning measures to reduce dependence on centralized heating, though such reforms are slow due to legacy infrastructure. Analysts call this Russian tactic a new form of pressure intended to worsen civilian hardship during the war.
The article clearly details Russian attacks deliberately targeting centralized heating plants in Ukraine, causing civilian suffering amid winter cold, constituting aggressor actions. It also notes Ukrainian government plans to reduce vulnerability by shifting heating infrastructure, indicating defensive preparations.
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