A new “blackout” in the capital’s Goloseevo? Residents of new high-rise buildings on Lobanovsky Avenue in the Aleksandrovsky residential complex expect power outages in their houses every day. And all because the condominiums owed DTEK 4 million hryvnia, citing the moratorium of March 5, 2022, despite the fact that the funds were collected from the residents themselves.
Ukraine has lifted a moratorium that prohibited power cuts for non-payment of utilities during martial law. After all, during the year of war, the debt of Ukrainians to Ukrenergo exceeded 30 billion hryvnia. That is, the so-called moratorium for individuals, which was introduced on March 5, 2022 with the beginning of a full-scale invasion, was lifted on December 29, 2023. Accordingly, the Cabinet of Ministers gave consent to energy suppliers to disconnect debtors for electricity supply. However, this only applies to residents of regions where military operations are not taking place and are not under temporary occupation.
So, the country’s largest business empire, DTEK, which affects the income of every household and national security, did not wait long and, because of its capital energy supply company Yasno, immediately warned all debtor subscribers about future outages. Yasno CEO Sergei Kovalenko even wrote about this on his Facebook page.
Let us recall that the DTEK company manages energy assets, and all ownership of 100% of its shares belongs to entrepreneur Rinat Akhmetov through System Capital Management.
The story of the “convenient” moratorium for condominiums
And here a strange situation arises. The moratorium was intended only for individuals, which means that condominiums had to pay for services on time. Moreover, the residents of the houses paid them regularly. So, what really happened and where did the debts come from?
So, last winter, modern new buildings, completely dependent on electricity, went through one of the most difficult periods since the beginning of the war, associated with long blackouts. Apart from light, these high-rise buildings had no water or heat. The elevators did not work and therefore entire families in their apartments became hostages because they could not get to shelter in time during enemy shelling.
The times of blackouts, fortunately, are over, however, it seems that due to the rash decisions of the Ukrainian authorities, dark days and nights can easily return to people. What turned energy suppliers during the war into ordinary collectors?
No matter how crazy it may sound, this is a real story and, as StopCor learned from residents of the Goloseevsky district, it has been happening for the second month in a row with high-rise buildings along Lobanovsky Avenue in the Aleksandrovsky residential complex.
As residents of the residential complex say, one day representatives of the capital’s state administration and the Yasno company appeared on the doorstep and reported that the houses of this complex had a debt for electricity in the amount of almost 4 million UAH. Advisor to Mr. Peter Panteleev, that is, Deputy Chairman of the Kyiv City State Administration, Alexey Tikhonov immediately set the condition: “first - money, then - light.”
The most interesting thing is that these are not debts of the people themselves - the overwhelming majority of them consciously pay their bills monthly, as the high-rise residents themselves say. These are many years of accumulated debts of the condominium associations of these two houses, which collected money for electricity from people, but with tacit consent did not transfer it to the developer, and the developer, accordingly, Yasno. The developer himself also abused and, taking advantage of the same moratorium, for a long time did not pay Yasno what came directly from the residents.
In neither house nor in the other do people want to pay other people's debts. However, the Kyiv city authorities are unshakable - all owners of apartments in both buildings must unite financially and pay off the debt, the origin of which, in fact, they have nothing to do with, but as the owners, there is no one else to pay it off.
How do the city authorities comment on the shutdown situation?
The Kyiv City State Administration says that if there are no significant changes in compliance and accommodation among the co-owners, then Yasno will first turn off the electricity in the common corridors of the house, heat and water pumps, elevators, and then in the apartments. Apartment owners are given until March 20 to do everything.
According to residents: “The pressure on people is insane: on the one hand, Klitschko’s deputies are putting pressure because of their heralds, on the other, there is an energy monster monopolist. The former do not want to bear responsibility, while the latter want money. In total, there are about 400 apartments in two buildings, with an average of 1,500 people living there, among whom, of course, there are children, elderly people, and people with disabilities.”
Our colleagues from one of the Kyiv media outlets have already contacted DTEK about this situation and received the answer that: “... residents are becoming hostages of failure to fulfill contractual terms between developers and electricity suppliers, which leads to a further cessation of electricity supply to their residents.” DTEK admitted that the contractual conditions are not fulfilled between the developer and the supplier, but the residents will be responsible for everything.
More from the letter: “... representatives of the Kyiv City State Administration most often act as mediators who help develop options for resolving problematic issues in order to avoid disconnecting residents from the power supply.”
However, after talking directly with the owners of apartments in these buildings, we came to preliminary conclusions that contradict the official position of the Kyiv City State Administration.
After all, Mrs. Galina, who lives in the house of this residential complex, says that this is not mediation at all, on the part of the Kyiv City State Administration it is extortion and blackmail with threats to turn off the entire house. “I recently buried my mother, she was sick and lived with me. Our house was not turned off even during blackouts. I don’t know how these endless emergency doctors would have gotten to our floor if there had been no light in the house and the elevators weren’t working. Mom probably would have died much earlier.”
Residents of high-rise buildings are most afraid of being buried alive due to possible shutdowns of elevators
Now the main fear among the residents of these houses is not even that there will be no light in the house, but that the elevators will be turned off and this directly threatens their life and health.
Mrs. Olga, who has lived in the house since its construction, says: “Yes, I know that these miracle collectors came to our house. You can’t call them anything else. Why didn't they come to the developer? Why aren't they asking him to pay these millions? Why don’t they have any complaints about our condominiums? Why should we pay what we have already paid for once? They want to turn our houses into a cemetery, the next time there will be not a suicide bomber, but a rocket, and the elevators will not work.”
By an unfortunate coincidence, on December 21, 2023, a Russian suicide bomber entered the third building of the residential complex and destroyed three floors. There was light in the house and people used the elevators to protect themselves from attack that night.
Resident Elena from the same house says: “That night the suicide bomber arrived literally 10 minutes after the alarm was announced. Now I’m afraid of burning alive and being buried along with my husband and son under rubble of concrete and metal; I may simply not have time to get down from my 25th floor. I have a little baby. How can I do this at night, in the dark on the stairs?
Does the capital’s authorities understand the danger of power outages and want to figure out who is to blame?
By the way, DTEK has already found itself in a scandalous situation due to a power outage due to a decision of the Brovary City District Court of the Kyiv Region. Although this is not a matter in court. And the fact is that PJSC DTEK Kyiv Regional Electric Grids, after they themselves admitted that the meter was unusable, reset it to zero and continued to charge funds according to the old indicators. The woman filed a lawsuit and won the case.
However, residents of high-rise buildings along Lobanovsky Avenue in the Aleksandrovsky residential complex do not really hope for justice.
Alexander shared his thoughts on this matter: “I myself heard how this adviser from the Kyiv City State Administration boasted that they had already managed to turn off several similar houses in Kyiv. They spent a week raising the alarm back and forth on foot, says a gentleman from the state administration, and quickly collected five million. You understand what it's called, right? They demand money from people. This is what our local authorities are doing now. They all need to go to the trenches to have their brains cleared.
Our editors were provided with screenshots of chat messages in that house, which clearly demonstrate all the emotions of people. But does the government itself understand the full danger of the impending shutdown? After all, looking at the chat correspondence, this is exactly what people are concerned about.
In both houses live the families of fallen heroes, families who have already lost a father or son in this war. These people do not understand how the authorities can do this after everything they have experienced. Pani Zoya, the wife of her husband, who died in the summer of 2023 near Avdeevka, says that the biggest idiocy is that the capital authorities force us to collect almost 4 million into the accounts of the same condominiums to which people have been paying for many years, but their money was not spent on payment electricity, but in an unknown direction.
Today, none of the residents know whether Klitschko’s people will stop playing along with the capital’s energy monopolist, whether they will stop illegally “bringing down” money, whether DTEK and Yasno will understand that putting people on hold is robbery and, most importantly , will the Government understand that daily air raids, ballistics threats and daily suicide bombings have not gone away and disconnecting ENTIRE houses from electricity could end in another tragedy. After all, quite recently there have been arrivals of suicide bombers in Odessa, Dnieper, Kharkov and Kyiv, where entire families died. And it is the ability to quickly go down to the storage facility that will help save lives.
Is the situation with debts so clear?
However, as StopKora journalist Igor Khmury comments, the situation here is strange and ambiguous. After all, in fact, there is a conflict here between residents, condominiums and the developer. Since they paid money not directly to DTEK, but to condominiums, then they did not have direct transactions. Consequently, the moratorium did not apply to them, says Khmury.
Since here we are talking about the relationship between legal entities and the supplier, and not individuals, the question accordingly arises: why was DTEK silent for so long, why was it not disconnected earlier, because the developer did not pay them for such a long time. And for a long period, the residents of the house did not control the condominiums, which they themselves chose, and did not receive a single report on the use of funds.
Even though DTEK constantly demands to increase electricity prices, there is a cemented habit of shifting the risks of its business to a simple household consumer, and this, as it turns out, can have unpredictable consequences for other people’s lives.
The best solution, perhaps, for residents of problem houses, according to the journalist’s conclusion, would be to hire a housing and communal services expert or a lawyer and sue the current management and initiate criminal proceedings.
This situation was also commented on in a telephone conversation by the Chairman of the Board of the Association “Household Housing Associations of the City of Kyiv” Valery Nikitchenko. That is, to put it simply, no one can “cut off” the right. But they can stop service to someone who does not pay for this service.
By the way, DTEK never turns off the entire house, because there are residents there who pay for electricity on time and this would be a violation of their rights.
Since the funds were not paid for by the condominium association, and not by the apartment residents themselves, then there is a risk of turning off the elevators, pumps that provide water supply and the lobbies of common areas,” Nikitchenko noted.
In addition, the Chairman of the Board assured that debts should be collected from condominiums in court.
It is worth noting that analysts submitted a journalistic request to the Kyiv City State Administration, DTEK and the Yasno company to clarify the circumstances of the case.
Additionally, we contacted the press service of the Kyiv City State Administration via telegram, but have not yet received a response.
