During the first week of the heating season in Kyiv, 25% of social sector facilities have been connected to heat. Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko announced this during a briefing, emphasizing that the city was the first in Ukraine to launch the heating season despite infrastructure damage and regular air raid alerts.
Connection of Social Facilities and Hospitals
According to the mayor, almost a quarter of the city's social facilities currently receive heat, including 49 hospitals, 153 kindergartens, and 23 schools. Heat supply is launched based on individual applications from facility directors. An exception remains part of the Dniprovskyi and Desnianskyi districts, where restoration work is still ongoing due to severe damage to an energy facility.
City medical institutions are fully prepared for potential power and heat outages. They have 480 generators on balance, 15 hospitals already operate their own wells, and construction is wrapping up at six other facilities. Additionally, 11 medical institutions are provided with autonomous heating from their own boiler houses, and this figure is planned to increase to 21 hospitals by the end of the year.
Autonomy of Social Protection Institutions
All 25 municipal social protection institutions have also been transferred to autonomous supply. For them, 134 generators of various capacities were purchased, along with necessary reserves of fuel, drinking water, medicines, and food supplies.
Such security measures are taken amid regular shelling and large-scale air raids. In the past week alone, sirens in Kyiv sounded more than 30 times, and the total duration of alerts exceeded 30 hours. As a result of the strikes, damage was recorded in residential buildings, office spaces, and critical infrastructure facilities.
Liquidation of Transport Shelling Consequences
City authorities are paying special attention to restoring transport infrastructure after day and night attacks. The Chernihivska metro station was damaged, with stained-glass windows, the facade, platform, tracks, contact rail, and traffic management system affected. More than 70 Kyiv Metro specialists worked around the clock to resume train traffic.
On the night of October 22, metro infrastructure on the South Bridge was also damaged, where repair work is currently underway. The vestibule at Chernihivska station has already resumed operation, and the number of buses on duplicate routes has been increased to compensate for temporary transport restrictions.
Heating Season Results and Prospects
The start of the heating season in the capital is taking place under extreme conditions due to constant threats to energy facilities. Nevertheless, the prompt connection of social facilities, creation of autonomous reserves, and large-scale restoration work help maintain the stability of the city's infrastructure in the face of approaching cold weather.
