Ekaterina Girnyk09:54, 02/04/24

Between 45 and 60 percent of all utilities in Russia are in need of repair, but Putin’s war in Ukraine is eating up a growing share of the Russian budget.

Russians suffer from fallen Soviet-era infrastructure that is poorly maintained and financed, resulting in a critical increase in heating network failures .

According to the Financial Times , incidents such as a heating main break in Russia’s Novosibirsk and a lack of heating in the Moscow region of Klimovsk at -20°C demonstrate the urgent need for investment in old Soviet-era infrastructure, but Putin’s war in Ukraine is eating up an ever-increasing share of the Russian budget.

“According to official estimates, from 45 to 60 percent of all utility networks are in need of repair, and this figure is growing every year, as is the number of accidents. And in Chukotka, which Putin visited for the first time in 23 years of his rule, this figure reaches about 90%.” , writes the publication.

At the same time, as experts note, there is no data for the beginning of 2024 yet, but, most likely, there were more accidents than in 2023, both in number and severity, experts note, explaining such a surge as a combination of “wear and tear” and sudden drop in temperature.

According to the Russian Ministry of Construction, upgrading utility networks will require more than 9 trillion rubles (or $100 billion) by 2030, equivalent to about a quarter of all budget expenditures planned for the current year. But while defense spending has risen over the past decade, reaching more than a third of the total budget last year, funding for public services has increased only slowly over the same period and will account for 2.2% of total spending in 2023 – far less than the investment needed.

In addition, another problem is the cost of utilities, which is unaffordable for many Russian families. Russian households’ utility debts have risen sharply in recent years, approaching 1 trillion rubles ($11.2 billion) in 2023.

Heating problems are just the tip of the iceberg, the FT notes. Although Russia is the world’s largest gas exporter, only 11 of its 83 administrative regions are fully connected to the gas pipeline network.

Another common problem is sewer system breaks. One of the most notable incidents occurred in 2022 in Volgograd, where the streets were flooded with human feces.

Such large-scale utility failures have provided a rare occasion for public criticism of the authorities in military Russia, writes the FT. However, Putin and his government have so far managed to deflect blame.

“People are dissatisfied with the state of public utilities, but they perceive the situation as a chronic disease. When something breaks, it irritates them, but does not surprise them,” the publication quotes one of the experts.

Communal collapse is approaching in Russia

On January 10, it became known that a communal collapse had occurred in the Moscow region: heat and hot water were turned off in the city of Dmitrov, and in the city of Elektrostal, local residents even lit fires to keep warm. 

And in Novosibirsk, more than 100 houses were left without heating and hot water due to an accident in the heating network. The air temperature in the city dropped to -14°.

As of 2022, about 30 percent of  heat and steam networks in Russia required replacement . The most difficult situation is in temporarily occupied Sevastopol, where the wear rate has reached 92 percent.

(C)UNIAN 2024