A controversy has erupted in Kyiv regarding utility bills: residents of the capital are reporting in large numbers that they have received heating bills for January 2026, despite the fact that the radiators in their apartments remained cold. The situation, which is being discussed on social media, has already received an official response at the government level.
Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Sviridenko, during the "Question Hour to the Government" in the Verkhovna Rada, stated directly that the situation requires an immediate investigation. According to the head of the Cabinet, if the service was not provided, billing is unacceptable.
"The bill should be zero"
Sviridenko emphasized the obviousness of the situation: where services were not provided, bills should arrive with a zero value. She called for specific addresses to be provided for verification and tasked Vice Prime Minister Alexey Kuleba with investigating the issue.
"Vice Prime Minister Alexey Vladimirovich will now be dealing with the addresses to which the respective bills were sent. Because according to the law, according to the adopted resolution of the Cabinet of Ministers, if services were not provided in full, the corresponding bills must not and cannot be issued to people," noted the Prime Minister.
According to her, the relevant instruction will be issued immediately after the end of the session. "There should not be bills for calculation there if the service was not supplied. And we have also adopted the relevant government decisions," added Sviridenko.
Scale of the problem and reaction of utility providers
Kyiv residents began to complain en masse about unjustified charges in recent days. Many claim that bills for January have already been paid, although heating was absent during this period.
At the same time, representatives of utility services report working on correcting the situation. Konstantin Lopatin, Director of the State Enterprise "Energosbyt" of the Municipal Enterprise "Kyivteploenergo," stated that the enterprise has already recalculated the cost of heat supply for January for 99% of the capital's consumers.
According to his data, the recalculation covered more than 1 million apartments. The total amount of the reduction in charges exceeded 720 million hryvnias. Despite these figures, the question of the legality of the issued bills and the mechanism for their verification remains open and is under the close attention of the government.