The freezing winter could be very difficult for Russia, as well as Ukraine. Photo / Getty Images
Call-up to fight in Vladimir Putin’s war means repairmen are not available for residents facing -40C freeze with broken heating.
As Moscow bombards Ukraine’s power grid, leaving millions of households without power and heating, many ordinary Russians are facing a bleak winter of their own - because central heating repairmen
have been mobilised to fight on the front lines
In Astrakhan, near Russia’s remote Caspian Sea coast, residents complained on social media that maintenance workers had been sent to fight in Ukraine with an engineering unit, even though they were needed to keep the central heating running.
“We turned to the military registration and enlistment offices and officials, explaining that the heating season is coming soon and we need people, but we never received a clear answer,” one resident told the ‘We can explain’ Telegram channel.
Built by the Soviet Union, polluting city power stations produce hot water and then pump it to apartment blocks through massive pipes that thaw out the frozen ground they run over or under.
