War against Ukraine leads to the decline of Russia’s municipal infrastructure
Russia is facing a worsening municipal infrastructure crisis caused by the long-term degradation of infrastructure and the redirection of state resources towards the war against Ukraine, intelligence services report.
According to the agency, chronic underfunding of the housing and utilities sector, worn-out networks and a lack of repairs are leading to mass accidents and disruptions to heating, water and electricity supplies. The situation is exacerbated by the fact that a significant share of budget funds is being channelled into military needs, leaving civilian infrastructure without adequate support.
Intelligence reports indicate that dilapidated heating networks, the absence of planned modernisation and persistent underinvestment have resulted in incidents that once took hours to fix now lasting for weeks, leaving people without heating in the midst of severe frost.
One of many examples is the settlement of Atamanovka in Zabaykalsky Krai, where around 5,000 residents, including hundreds of children, have been without heating for more than a week.
The first ruptures in the heating main occurred as early as 30 December, but breakdowns have continued one after another. Indoor temperatures have fallen to nearly zero while outside temperatures dropped to –25°C, forcing residents to live in winter clothing. Schools and kindergartens have been closed, and heating centres set up by local authorities turned out to be cold and effectively unusable.
Officials have traditionally limited themselves to promises and demonstrative meetings, but the problem runs much deeper: Russia’s municipal system has not been modernised for decades.
Rosstat has previously acknowledged that one third of heating networks are in critical condition. Meanwhile, in regions across the country — from Siberia to central Russia — a series of large-scale heating system failures have already been recorded at the start of the year, leaving entire districts without heat.
The Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) noted that a further blow to the sector was a sharp reduction in funding for housing and utilities. Over several years, the Kremlin has cut the budget for communal infrastructure by more than half.
“If trillions of roubles are being spent on the war, only enough money remains for patching holes in heating networks rather than fully replacing worn-out systems,” the intelligence service added.
