Putin’s War is Why So Many Russians are Suffering in the Dark, Cold and without Water, ‘Important Stories’ Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Feb.16 – The independent Important Stories portal says that since the start of Putin’s expanded war in Ukraine, 78 percent of Russia’s federal subjects have significantly reduced their spending on housing infrastructure, a major reason why so many Russians in these regions are suffering in the dark, the cold and without running water.   

            To meet the unfunded mandates that Moscow has imposed on the regional governments, the latter have been forced to make cuts in repairing and updating infrastructure and that has contributed mightily to the disasters in Russia this winter (istories.media/stories/2026/02/16/za-vremya-voini-78-rossiiskikh-regionov-znachitelno-sokrashchali-raskhodi-na-zhkkh/).

            The world including many Russians of good will have reacted with horror to the way in which Putin’s bombing campaign has left so many Ukrainians in the dark, without heat and without running water; but there has been far less understanding that Putin has launched an almost equally horrific but completely unacknowledged operation against his own people.

            What makes this development especially appalling is that Russians have seen their utility bills skyrocket over the same period; but it is becoming clear that the moneys collected by the authorities are not going to ensure that they have the services they thought they were paying for but rather for Putin’s war, an outcome none of them can be happy about.

            And it seems likely that recognition of this fact as it spreads will give rise to references to what Russians earlier called the Kremlin’s proclivity to engage in the “bombing of Voronezh,” a reference to the Putin regime’s inflicting of pain on its own people in order to put the Kremlin in a position to do so against others as well.