A favorite Russian military myth is that winter is always on their side but thousands are freezing at home.

Kremlin propagandists have long claimed that “General Frost” marshalled his icy forces to help Russia beat back Napoleon and Hitler, and will aid its troops in their invasion of Ukraine. But Vladimir Putin is finding the cold can be a fickle friend.

In the Moscow region in recent days and weeks, Russians have been freezing in their homes.

Some 20,000 people in the cities of Klimovsk, Lyubertsy, and Podolsk, in the Moscow region, have been left without heating for days — some of them for weeks — as temperatures have dropped below -25C last week, Russian Telegram channel Baza reported. Local authorities declared an emergency.

According to the state-run TASS news agency, the main reason for the lack of heat was a broken boiler at a local ammunition factory that supplies the Russian army’s war in Ukraine but also used to provide heat to Klimovsk and its outskirts.

  • vexikron@lemmy.zip
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    27
    ·
    10 months ago

    General Frost?

    Man Putin must be scraping the bottom of the barrel if he’s using CO’s from Advance Wars.

    • radix@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      4
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      10 months ago

      His pals in NK and Iran have been using poorly edited video games footage as propaganda for years. This is the next logical step after importing faulty munitions: importing faulty tactics as well.

      • vexikron@lemmy.zip
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        4
        ·
        edit-2
        10 months ago

        As a person who has played the Arma series my whole life it is truly astounding, sad and hilarious when footage from one of those games is seriously presented as actual real world footage by any actual news outlet.

        ONE

        Is down!

        TWO

        Taking Command!

  • Tja@programming.dev
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    23
    ·
    10 months ago

    One can complain about the industrial-military complex in the US, but in Russia people literally rely on the local ammunition factory for heating their homes. Fucking hell.

    Also, a boiler is broken for months in an ammunition factory in the middle of a war?? How many yachts does thr owner have??

    • ZapBeebz_@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      15
      ·
      10 months ago

      The most charitable excuse is that it requires parts they can’t get due to sanctions.

      At the same time, it’s a boiler in Russia. How high tech could it possibly be???

      • Zron@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        7
        ·
        10 months ago

        Steam Boilers are incredibly dangerous, especially large industrial ones that could be used to heat an entire town.

        It’s not uncommon for a poorly run boiler system to be down for a time due to a broken makeup water pump or faulty pressure reliefs. Many industrial plants will have multiple smaller boilers for that reason, as a properly running plant will be able to bring a damaged boiler offline and bring the spare online rather quickly with little to know loss to production or heating.

        If that thing ever got low on water for any reason, it would do more damage to the area than a bombing run by the enemy.

        • ZapBeebz_@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          10 months ago

          Oh completely agree. I just wouldn’t think that the parts required to fix a steam boiler are high enough tech to be impacted by sanctions.

          • Everythingispenguins@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            10 months ago

            It probably isn’t sanctions directly on the needed parts, but more of a lack of focus/resources to put into fixing it. It could also be an inability to pay for foreign parts due to being locked out of Swift

  • Madison420@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    5
    ·
    10 months ago

    Their system of centralized district heating would be so fuckin easy to break with insurrection or black ops strike.