A favorite Russian military myth is that winter is always on their side but thousands are freezing at home.
Kremlin propagandists have long claimed that “General Frost” marshalled his icy forces to help Russia beat back Napoleon and Hitler, and will aid its troops in their invasion of Ukraine. But Vladimir Putin is finding the cold can be a fickle friend.
In the Moscow region in recent days and weeks, Russians have been freezing in their homes.
Some 20,000 people in the cities of Klimovsk, Lyubertsy, and Podolsk, in the Moscow region, have been left without heating for days — some of them for weeks — as temperatures have dropped below -25C last week, Russian Telegram channel Baza reported. Local authorities declared an emergency.
According to the state-run TASS news agency, the main reason for the lack of heat was a broken boiler at a local ammunition factory that supplies the Russian army’s war in Ukraine but also used to provide heat to Klimovsk and its outskirts.
Steam Boilers are incredibly dangerous, especially large industrial ones that could be used to heat an entire town.
It’s not uncommon for a poorly run boiler system to be down for a time due to a broken makeup water pump or faulty pressure reliefs. Many industrial plants will have multiple smaller boilers for that reason, as a properly running plant will be able to bring a damaged boiler offline and bring the spare online rather quickly with little to know loss to production or heating.
If that thing ever got low on water for any reason, it would do more damage to the area than a bombing run by the enemy.
Oh completely agree. I just wouldn’t think that the parts required to fix a steam boiler are high enough tech to be impacted by sanctions.
It probably isn’t sanctions directly on the needed parts, but more of a lack of focus/resources to put into fixing it. It could also be an inability to pay for foreign parts due to being locked out of Swift