People are freezing in Putin’s Arctic navy towns
While husbands are killing and being killed in Ukraine, the wives and families are left in ice-cold apartments in the Russian North. In the military towns of Pechenga and Sputnik, indoor housing temperatures this week dropped to 11°C.
“In Pechenga, we continue to freeze! It is only 11°C in the apartment and the floor is ice-cold even when you walk in warm socks and slippers,” a local woman named Anastasia complains to regional Governor Andrei Chibis.
“The heating is almost non-existent! And this is only the start of winter! What will it be like in January and February when the building gets really cold?” she asks.
The governor’s social media page are now flooded with complaints from people, whose houses are freezing cold. Many of the comments are written by women that live in Sputnik and Pechenga, the military towns located near the border to Norway and Finland.
“Good day, respected Andrei Vladimirovich! This is again an inhabitant of Pechenga writing to you. I want to tell you that it is minus 30°C outside and plus 12°C inside our apartment,” a woman named Svetlana writes.
“I would really like it to be warm in the apartments so that we do not freeze. We have two children and they are both sick, and the winter has just started. What it will be like later is terrifying to imagine,” she adds.
“Sputnik is freezing. Inside the apartment is a horrendous cold,” woman from the military town writes in a comment and adds a thermometer that shows 13°C.
“Please help us solve this problem,” the woman begs.
Sputnik and Pechenga house the bases of two of the most potent military forces in northern Russia. The 61st Naval Infantry Brigade and the 200th Motorised Rifle Brigade are considered among the elite troops of the Northern Fleet.
Thousands of soldiers from the two brigades have been sent to war, and many hundred have been killed. A Norwegian intelligence report from early 2023 estimated that up to 80 percent of the brigades’ former capacity had vanished in less than one year of battle.
Billions of rubles are planned invested in the social infrastructure of Pechenga and Sputnik, as well as other military towns in the Kola Peninsula. During his recent meeting with Vladimir Putin, Governor Chibis, the renovation of the towns was a key point of attention.
Likewise, when Defence Minister Andrei Belousov paid a visit to Sputnik in October this year, he highlighted the need for infrastructure upgrades .
New housing, dormitories and barracks are under planning, the defence minister said during the visit.
Meanwhile, it is ice cold in the homes of the wives and families of men fighting in Russia’s war of aggression.
Located in Kirkenes, Norway, just a few kilometres from the borders to Russia and Finland, the Barents Observer is dedicated to cross-border journalism in Scandinavia, Russia and the wider Arctic.
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