Million-dollar tenders with inflated prices, “dead souls” in states and regular network outages. On the eve of the new heating season, the main question for Kyiv residents is simple: will there be heat in their homes? The National Police is recording signs of corruption schemes in the work of the Kyivteploenergo (KTE) enterprise — from possible budget cuts to paying salaries to non-existent employees. Against this background, Russian attacks on critical infrastructure only increase anxiety.
KTE is the largest producer of heat and electricity in Ukraine and the only supplier of heat to the capital's housing stock. The company's structure includes CHP-5 and CHP-6, the Energia waste incineration plant, Kyiv Heat Networks, four heating plants, 19 pumping stations, 185 boiler houses, and almost 3,000 km of main and distribution networks.
Network breakdowns are commonplace: streets turn into “boiling” rivers, houses are left without heating and hot water. Back in 2018, Deputy Mayor Petro Panteleyev admitted that up to 80% of Kyiv’s heating networks are in emergency.
KTE is actually accountable only to the Kyiv City State Administration and acts autonomously: it independently forms tariffs, conducts purchases, and orders inspections. According to MP Oleksiy Kucherenko, external state control over the state of the networks was dismantled at the initiative of the city authorities - this created a "gray zone" where any figures regarding losses and needs for funds are difficult to verify.
In 2024–2025, the Kyiv City Council recapitalized KTE: the authorized capital was increased by ≈2.5 billion UAH with the help of an EBRD loan (50 million euros). It was decided to repay the interest and principal of the loan from the city budget. Additionally, the city targeted an EBRD grant of 5 million euros — also for the needs of KTE.
The company hid its public financial statements (citing the war), but the fragmentary data shows that there is a lot of money in the system - the question is where it goes.
According to KTE, heat losses in networks are about 27%. To understand the scale: the methodology allows only ~13% of losses to be included in the tariff. The excess of the rest actually “falls” into the pockets of consumers and the budget. In neighboring cities, the picture is different: Cherkasy, Zhytomyr, Ternopil, Chernivtsi — 10–11% losses due to systematic pipe replacement. In Kyiv — 2–3% of network replacements each year for years, which is critically low for 80% wear and tear.
An analysis of procurements for 2025 shows: key costs are the reconstruction of boiler houses with the installation of cogeneration units (electricity + heat from one fuel). The cost of the units themselves is from units to tens of millions per unit. But in separate lots, KTE also purchases construction and installation works (foundations, walls, roofs), and even the removal of construction waste - all separately, for hundreds of millions.
The total cost of construction work alone is over UAH 1.1 billion (excluding the cost of units). At the same time, network repairs often cost tiny amounts (UAH 169–265 thousand per facility), while expenses for facades, office furniture, etc. run into the millions. The disproportion between the “visible” capital investments and the real “bottleneck” (network) is striking.
In recent years, KTE has been the subject of a series of searches and suspicions. Among the episodes:
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Overestimation of the cost of materials and work;
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"Dead souls" in personnel management: fictitious employment of people who did not perform their duties, but received millions in payments;
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Suspicions of officials in negligence when accepting work (budget damage of about UAH 1 million in just one episode).
At the same time, the Kyiv City State Administration is publicly talking about “pressure on the enterprise,” which is allegedly “paralyzing” work.
Despite the alarming headlines, experts do not see any higher risks for Kyiv than for other cities: the capital's air defense is stronger, heat generation is sufficient, and the key vulnerability is precisely the network and the quality of management. Simply put, the biggest threat is within the system.
