Former energy minister charged for broken heating in naval infantry base Sputnik
Aleksandr Kobytev was minister of energy and housing in Murmansk before he took over the lead of a regional utility company. He has now been convicted for his company's failure to provide heating to the elite base of the Northern Fleet.
Kobytev served as energy and housing minister in the government of Andrei Chibis in the period between January 2023 and October 2024. He subsequently became general director of PromVoenStroy, a public utility company that provides heating to Sputnik and other military towns in the Kola Peninsula.
Sputnik is the military base that houses the 61st Naval Infantry Brigade, the elite unit of the Northern Fleet. The base is located only few kilometres from Norway and Finland.
Former minister Kobytev has now been convicted for his company's failure to provide sufficient heating to Sputnik.
It was the regional prosecutor's office that filed a case against Kobytev.
"In the course of an inspection, it became clear that the temperature regime of heater No 42/138 in Sputnik did not meet the settled heating scheme, which resulted in reduced air temperature in the housing quarters in Sputnik," the prosecutor informs via local media.
It was a violation of people's right for proper and secure living conditions, the legal office adds.
Kobytev was found guilty in the case.
But the punishment was indeed moderate. The former energy minister only got a fine of 5,000 rubles (€54).
The ice-cold apartments in the military towns in the Kola Peninsula during the winter of 2024/25 stirred major frustration among families of Russian military men.
While husbands were out killing and being killed in Ukraine, the wives and families were left in the freezing cold apartments. In the military towns of Pechenga and Sputnik, indoor housing temperatures in December 2024 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 complained 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 asked on the social media page of the governor.
"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 wrote.
"Sputnik is freezing. Inside the apartment is a horrendous cold," woman from the military town wrote in a comment and added a thermometer that showed 13°C.
