Heating season 2026 – why cities’ sustainability plans are at risk without money and staff

It is a well-known wisdom that preparations for the new heating season, as well as for the election campaign, should begin immediately after the end of the current events. And this year, perhaps for the first time, this advice was heeded.

ZN.UA has already written about the very architecture of the Comprehensive Resilience Plans for Regions and Individual Cities, approved by the decision of the National Security and Defense Council and put into effect by the presidential decree of March 14 of this year. Let us just remind you that this is a large-scale system of measures to protect, reserve, and restore critical infrastructure, which is jointly financed by the state and communities and coordinated by a special government center. The initial cost of implementing the plans was estimated at UAH 216.3 billion, but later it increased to UAH 278 billion.

There are only a few months left until the start of the new heating season. And now, regional and community leaders are evaluating resilience plans not so much from the perspective of their conceptual correctness, but through the prism of practical implementation, funding shortages, staffing problems, and tight deadlines.

Have communities received enough resources to fulfill their tasks? Is the state able to provide the necessary coordination and speed of decision-making? And will this winter become a test not only for the energy system, but also for the ability of the Ukrainian management system to implement its own strategic decisions?

First results

On June 12, during a meeting of the Coordination Center, Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko announced that the state is allocating UAH 67.8 billion to the implementation of regional resilience plans thanks to changes to the state budget.

According to the Deputy Prime Minister for the Reconstruction of Ukraine – Minister of Community and Territorial Development Oleksiy Kuleba, more than 500 protection facilities are currently under construction. As for distributed heat generation, almost 50% of the required capacity has already been contracted or delivered. Heat and water supply enterprises are more than 70% provided with backup power sources. In addition, 29 special water supply projects are planned for implementation in 14 regions, which should meet the needs of more than 15 million citizens, and almost 90% of them already have ready-made design and estimate documentation.

If you analyze this data, you get the impression that Ukraine has finally managed to centrally form a more or less unified system for responding to energy challenges: sources and priorities of funding, responsible executors, coordination and interaction mechanisms have been identified.

However, it is at the stage of practical implementation that the first systemic limitations begin to appear. Heads of regional and local governments, regional administrations and city mayors evaluate sustainability plans primarily through the prism of funding shortages, human resources and strict deadlines set by the state.

The devil is in the details

The Association of Ukrainian Cities briefly described the history of the emergence of obligations to implement regional resilience plans as “responsibility without money.” According to Oksana Prodan, advisor to the head of the Association of Ukrainian Cities, preparations for the heating season should take place in three key areas: protection from shelling (support for air defense and the Armed Forces of Ukraine in general), preparation of energy enterprises, and implementation of programs to support consumers and local governments.

Separately, Oksana Prodan emphasizes the need for the state to repay debts to communities from the difference in tariffs, which currently amount to about UAH 72 billion.

Mayors of Ukrainian cities also draw attention to the fact that the central government has imposed personal responsibility on them for the implementation of plans, but at the same time systematically withdraws funds from local budgets, in particular through the redistribution of “military” and “security” personal income tax. They demand that the government repay multi-billion-dollar debts from the difference in heat tariffs, since without these funds, utilities do not have the resources to co-finance large-scale energy projects.

Municipalities also complain about the lack of personnel, as well as the fact that the state itself sometimes slows down the rapid deployment of distributed generation due to complex regulatory procedures for energy, in particular cogeneration equipment.

Thus, local governments have actually received a significant share of responsibility for the implementation of sustainability plans, but they have not been provided with sufficient financial, human and regulatory resources to complete the tasks set within the specified time frame.

While for most regions the main challenges are financial and human, Kyiv remains a separate story. Unlike most regions, the approval of the capital’s sustainability plan is accompanied not only by technical, but also by managerial problems. Our interlocutors point out that in Kyiv, the implementation of the plans is further complicated by a conflict of authority between the city and military administrations, and also has a clear political overtone. This situation demonstrates another potential problem: even with the availability of resources, the effectiveness of the preparation may depend on the quality of coordination and a clear division of authority between different control centers.

How resilience plans are implemented on the ground

In the regions, resilience plans are evaluated primarily in terms of their practical implementation. And although our interlocutors assess the pace of preparation for winter differently, almost all of them name the same problems – money, personnel and time.

Dnipro Mayor Borys Filatov noted in an exclusive comment to ZN.UA that not all information about the preparation for the heating season can be public for objective reasons. According to him, some large-scale projects in the field of heat supply have already been implemented, several more large projects are planned, in particular related to water supply, but he is not disclosing more details at the moment.

“We are quietly working to make the next winter more comfortable for people. We often do a lot in advance,” says the city head.

The total cost of the resilience plan for Dnipro is estimated at UAH 9 billion. As of today, the city has already attracted UAH 4 billion in loans from state banks, while state funding currently amounts to only UAH 40 million.

“Of course, these are huge funds, and we cannot cope on the spot alone. How much more and when they will be able to allocate from the center is a very interesting question. They promise us, but at the moment there is no talk of specific amounts or deadlines,” says the mayor, explaining that much depends on international partners and their support.

In general, Borys Filatov assesses the pace of implementation of the sustainability plan and the coordination of this process at all levels as quite acceptable. At the same time, the main problems, in his opinion, remain financial and personnel.

“I am very much looking forward to the mobilization reform announced by the government, because when utility workers and contractors are mobilized simply during work on arrivals or construction, it paralyzes the entire city economy and greatly complicates the implementation of measures within the framework of the sustainability plan,” emphasizes the mayor, adding that without people and money, nothing will “go”.

Along with the city, the region also has its own challenges. The leadership of the Dnipropetrovsk region emphasizes that in their case the scale of preparation is also determined by the status of the front-line region. The head of the Dnipropetrovsk OVA Oleksandr Ganzha told ZN.UA that the region’s resilience plan for 2026 provides for four key areas: protection of critical infrastructure, provision of enterprises with backup power, development of thermal generation and installation of additional electricity generation facilities.

According to him, we are talking about hundreds of critical infrastructure facilities, hundreds of megawatts of backup capacity and dozens of new generation facilities, which should be put into operation by the beginning of the autumn-winter period. More than UAH 20 billion is needed to fully implement the regional plan. All work is being carried out on the basis of co-financing from the state and local budgets, with the share of communities being at least 15%.

According to Oleksandr Ganzha, the process is moving according to schedule, but front-line realities constantly create additional difficulties.

“Dnipropetrovsk region is a frontline region that suffers from enemy attacks every day. This leads to the destruction of civilian and critical infrastructure. Restoration requires resources — material and human. But we are doing everything possible and impossible to prepare for winter and provide our people with heating, light and water. We are working,” Oleksandr Ganzha concludes.

Completely different challenges are in the rear communities. Ivano-Frankivsk Mayor Ruslan Marcinkiv notes that measures for the city are included in the regional resilience plan. One of the key areas is the transition from large boiler houses to smaller local heat supply systems.

“In particular, in our neighborhood of the former STEK, the transition to individual heating and small boiler houses is being completed. Work is ongoing at several boiler houses, and we have to make it on time. It is very important for us to complete this work. I also thank the residents who joined in and also switched to individual heating where we could not build a network accordingly. Therefore, we hope that all work will be completed by the beginning of the heating season. We thank the government for the six boilers that were provided to us for the implementation of the sustainability plan. They are included in the design documentation for the construction of three larger boiler houses. In total, 13 boiler houses are currently in operation, which should be operational by November 1 of this year in order to provide heat to schools, kindergartens, the population and other institutions,” says the mayor.

At the same time, Ruslan Martsinkiv calls one of the main problems the interaction with gas companies.

“There are serious problems with gas companies. Today, we do not understand exactly how the gas will be launched, in particular with NJSC Naftogaz, we also do not understand the position of regional gas companies, but we hope that these problems will be resolved in the near future. We would like more assistance to fulfill the president’s instructions and accordingly implement the programs approved by the regional state administration,” emphasizes the mayor of Ivano-Frankivsk.

In Lutsk, the focus has been on installing block-modular boiler houses. As Deputy Mayor Volodymyr Martsenyuk told ZN.UA, the sustainability plan provides for the installation of four BMCs with a total capacity of 22 MW to provide