Residents of a Moscow region town impacted by power outages have taken to the streets, demanding that local authorities restore heat to their homes as subzero temperatures grip the region, Russian media reported Friday.
At least 21,000 people had power knocked out in their homes on Thursday morning in the town of Podolsk when a heating main burst at the Klimovsk Specialized Ammunition Plant,according to the Kommersant business daily.
The Telegram news channel Ostorozhno Moskva published a video of several local residents who gathered in the town''s central square to demand the authorities restore their heating, as well as punish those responsible for the outage.
“The police arrived quickly to disrupt us. I wish they’d brought back heating as fast as they dispatched the cops,” the person recording the video could be heard saying.
“Since more than 24 hours have passed, we ask to punish all those involved in this emergency,” the petition reads, naming Podolsk Mayor Grigory Artamonov and the heads of local utilities as the culprits.
Households in the Moscow region towns of Khimki, Balashikha, Solnechnogorsk, Lyubertsy and Elektrostal also experienced heating lossas a result of power outages, with temperatures in the area plummeting to minus 20 degrees Celsius, according to the investigative news website iStories.
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Tens of thousands of Russians are reported to have no heating in their homes in the Moscow region alone after a heating main burst at the Klimovsk Specialized Ammunition Plant in the town of Podolsk, which is around 30 miles south of central Moscow, on January 4.
Residents in multiple regions including Rostov, St. Petersburg, Volgograd, and Voronezh have also been affected by lengthy power outages, and some have resorted to filming video appeals as they grapple with the subzero temperatures. In one of the clips, Russians complain that they are freezing and that they are left with no choice but to warm their homes with gas stoves, heaters, and "whatever else we can find."
Others are lighting fires in the streets to keep warm. Newsweek has not independently verified the clips circulating online and has contacted Russia''s Foreign Ministry for comment by email.
"Russia promised to freeze Europe, but is now freezing itself. Accidents at utility companies are systemic and the Russian authorities can''t handle them," Anton Gerashchenko, an adviser to Ukraine''s minister of internal affairs, said on X (formerly Twitter) on Monday.
He was referring to threats issued by Putin and other Russian officials since 2022—when the full-scale invasion of Ukraine began—to halt energy supplies to Europe to let it "freeze."
"By the way, the thesis of ''freezing Europe'' is regularly mentioned by the Russian authorities, who threaten to cut off gas to Western countries if the Kremlin''s political demands are not met," said Gerashchenko.
"Gazprom released a video for the song ''And the winter will be long'', in which a man with the inscription ''Gazprom'' on his uniform shuts off the gas valve, after that an ''ice age'' occurs in European cities."
On Sunday, two shopping malls in Russia''s second largest city, St. Petersburg, were forced to close due to problems with light and heating, reported local news outlet 78 . Hundreds of other homes in the city have had no electricity, water or heating for days amid temperatures of -25 C (-13 F).
Russian authorities have also been forced to compensate passengers of a train that ran from Samara to St. Petersburg (a 20-hour journey) without heating during -30 C (-22 F) temperatures. Videos circulating on social media showed carriage windows frozen over. A passenger also said the toilet didn''t work during the trip due to frozen pipes.
"The Federal Passenger Company apologizes to passengers for the inconvenience caused," said a subsidiary of Russian Railways, the Federal Passenger Company, RBC news reported.
Isabel van Brugen is a Newsweek Reporter based in Kuala Lumpur. Her focus is reporting on the Russia-Ukraine war. Isabel joined Newsweek in 2021 and had previously worked with news outlets including the Daily Express, The Times, Harper''s BAZAAR, and Grazia. She has an M.A. in Newspaper Journalism at City, University of London, and a B.A. in Russian language at Queen Mary, University of London. Languages: English, Russian
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