Ancient Soviet system no match for cold

Part of Putin’s Ukraine strategy over the past decade has been to weaponise Russian gas deliveries to drive up prices and freeze citizens in their homes. At times it has worked, but not now. Europe has moved fast since February 2022 to source its gas elsewhere. Ukraine no longer needs Russian gas at all. And it’s the Russians who are freezing in their homes. Tens of thousands have been left without heat in Klimovsk, Novosibirsk, St Petersburg and Kaliningrad as an unrefurbished Soviet-era central heating system has failed to meet the challenge of an unusually severe winter. It hasn’t helped Putin that a broken-down Klimovsk heating plant is part-owned by absentee investors living abroad but with close ties to the Kremlin; nor that news of the heating failures has got out via Telegram despite official efforts to censor it. The war hasn’t dented Putin’s popularity. Cold might.