Key facts
- Kyivteploenergo said police searched the company and employees' homes and seized documents on November 6.
- Kyivteploenergo said the searches may indicate political pressure during preparation to launch heating for millions of Kyivans.
- Kyiv's Prosecutor's Office said police did not search Kyivteploenergo's premises or take documents.
- The Prosecutor's Office said court-ordered actions at two employees' homes concerned suspected theft of budget funds through inflated material costs.
- Zelensky said Kyiv failed to carry out city-level decisions on preparing for the heating season.
- Klitschko said the central government approved Kyiv's resilience plan only in early August after nearly six months.
Kyivteploenergo, the city-run company that supplies heat to the capital, said on November 6, 2026 that police had searched the company and the homes of several employees and seized documents related to Kyiv's energy resilience plan. The company did not say why the searches took place, and it did not reply to the Kyiv Independent's request for proof of the searches and seizures by the time of publication.
"Kyivteploenergo believes that searches under such circumstances may indicate political pressure," the company said on its website, adding that the situation was especially critical during preparation to launch heating for millions of Kyivans. The Kyiv City Administration publicly backed the company's accusations around the same time and stressed the importance of media coverage of the searches.
Kyiv's Prosecutor's Office dismissed both claims. It said on Telegram that police took no documents and did not search Kyivteploenergo's premises. Investigative actions were carried out on the basis of court orders exclusively at the homes of two Kyivteploenergo employees and employees of contractor organizations, the office said, as part of an investigation into the possible theft and misappropriation of budget funds by inflating the cost of materials during construction work.
The dispute unfolded as President Volodymyr Zelensky again criticized Kyiv's authorities for failing to prepare the capital for winter. "The challenges (in Kyiv) are very serious," Zelensky wrote on social media on November 6, saying the result was a failure to carry out city-level decisions on the heating season along with the Russian operation against Ukrainian energy.
Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko, who the Kyiv Independent described as having a long-running public feud with Zelensky, said the government had failed to approve Kyiv's resilience plan for nearly six months and approved it only in early August, a month before autumn. "The central government's mantra that Kyiv is the worst off, the constant manipulation and lies, is a bad story," Klitschko wrote on Telegram on November 6, saying the government was obstructing the capital and trying to dislodge him.
People in Ukraine's energy sector who spoke with the Kyiv Independent ahead of winter said the government announced the resilience plans without securing the funds needed to complete them, leaving many regions including Kyiv unable to prepare for the cold season. The plan was first announced in March.
As the capital endured days-long power outages, frustrated residents blocked a street on the morning of November 6, Radio Svoboda reported. One woman told the outlet she had only one hour of power in the last three days. Some Kyivans able to leave are moving to other parts of Ukraine or abroad.