Ukraine's cities show imbalance in winter preparations, high-rises most vulnerable – 'Winter. Cities Will Hold' project head
The 2026-27 heating season will be the hardest for Ukraine since the start of the war, and preparations among major cities are uneven, Vitaliy Miroshnychenko, head of the "Winter. Cities Will Hold" project, said.
"Since the start of the full-scale invasion, this year's winter will be the hardest. The Energy Ministry has officially announced this winter as the hardest and harshest of the entire war period, one that will come with prolonged systemic outages. This is clear from several factors, because for a long time now there have been systemic destruction of energy infrastructure, systemic destruction of communications and everything that ensures the normal functioning of the energy sector. The second problem is the imbalance in preparation, which shows up in how ready different regions are to expand energy infrastructure," Miroshnychenko said during a discussion titled "Winter Is Near: Are the State and Society Ready?" at the Interfax-Ukraine press center on Thursday.
Kyiv, Ukraine's capital, is currently the best prepared, he said.
"It is more than 50% ready, but if we're talking about cities with a population of over a million, other large population centers, their readiness is estimated at no more than 20%. Why? Because we don't have state subvention funds, and local community funds are insufficient. Next is the resource gap. All funds of the Energy Support Fund have been contracted, and according to the European Commission and the Energy Ministry, additional hundreds of millions of euros are needed," the project head said.
Miroshnychenko stressed the vulnerability of major cities.
"There is no Plan B, and the main issue is high-rise buildings — water pumping for nine-story buildings and above, and heat and power supply. This mainly concerns high-rise development, which as a rule means cities with a population of over a million and regional centers," he said.
Ukrainian cities need to be ready for scenarios in which there may be no electricity for 24, 48 or 72 hours, which is why the NGO Civil-Military Movement developed the "Winter. City Will Hold" project, laying out algorithms for community actions in the event of blackouts and disruptions to heat and water supply, the project head said.
"The project's main goal is to raise the real readiness of Ukraine's largest cities through an independent audit, as well as a public winter resilience index, practical assistance and the deployment of rapid response teams. We serve as a national arbiter, with the Civil-Military Movement acting as an independent, objective arbiter of winter readiness and a real helper to Ukrainian communities. The key focus is concentrating resources on regional centers and, as I said, the capital, Kyiv. The only exception will be the city of Kherson because of the security situation, but in addition to that there will also be Kryvyi Rih, as one of the largest urban areas in Dnipropetrovsk region… Looking ahead, we will be forming so-called unity brigades — coordinated mobile technical teams responding to requests for assistance at critical infrastructure facilities, which will operate in various regions of Ukraine," Miroshnychenko said.
The project's task is to shift winter preparation "from formal reporting into the realm of real readiness," he said. The road map was developed based on the expertise of specialists in energy, heat and water supply, engineering life-support systems, civil protection, utilities, crisis management and information security.
The discussion also covered the actual readiness of shelters and Points of Invincibility, backup heat and water supply, the operation of critical facilities, a possible new wave of evacuations, and communities' capacity to accept internally displaced people.
Oleksiy Ivashyn, head of the Civil-Military Movement NGO, stressed that winter preparations should be based not on an optimistic scenario but on readiness for the worst-case development of events.
"We are not creating this project as a declaration, not just as a document for the sake of a document. We are bringing in specialists in energy, heat and water supply, engineering life-support systems, civil protection, utilities, information security and so on. Our task is to look comprehensively at community readiness — what happens with heat when there's no electricity, what happens with water, how life-support systems work, what to do in the event of a prolonged blackout, how to support the most vulnerable people who need it most. And overall, how local authorities, state services, volunteers, NGOs and utility companies should interact with each other," he said during the discussion.
Ivashyn described the project's first stage as developing a unified system and testing it in practice.
"The second stage of the project is providing direct assistance to local authorities, state services and residents themselves once the cold period begins," he said.
The "Winter. City Will Hold" project envisages comprehensive preparation of communities for the 2026/2027 heating season — from risk assessment to specific action algorithms in the event of shelling, prolonged blackouts, loss of heat and water supply, and other emergencies. The project's second stage will begin with the onset of cold weather and will focus directly on helping community residents.