Kyiv’s evacuation plan, mobile kitchens, and doomsday scenarios: what should the capital really be preparing for?
16 January 20:03
РОЗБІР ВІД 
Instead of launching large-scale attacks across the country, the enemy has focused on isolating specific major cities. The main focus is on Kyiv, Odesa, and Dnipro. The New York Times describes the Kremlin’s primary goal as creating a humanitarian crisis in the largest cities and forcing the Ukrainian authorities to make concessions in negotiations.
Within the country, this has sparked a wave of alarming predictions, rumors of an evacuation of the capital, and public disputes between central and local authorities over preparedness for worst-case scenarios.
Is Kyiv truly facing a humanitarian catastrophe in the event of new massive strikes on the energy sector?
Is the capital prepared for a complete power outage, and should the public be informed of this today?
Kyiv’s resources: how long will they last?
It is necessary to distinguish real risks from panic. This was discussed in a commentary by “ "Komersant Ukrainian". However, he acknowledges that the threat to Kyiv is obvious.
According to him, the wave of fear intensified after the publication in The New York Times, although the fact that Russia is trying to make life in Kyiv unbearable is not news.
“Putin has been trying to make Kyiv uninhabitable for three years now. There’s nothing sensational about that,” notes Zagorodniy.
According to the expert, the key problem today is not the threat itself, but the lack of clear accountability and coordination between central and local authorities. The capital is unable to cope with the massive consequences of the energy crisis on its own.
“The capital cannot handle either the recovery or the response on its own. A clear chain of command is necessary,” Zagorodniy emphasizes.
Zagorodniy believes that a specific person should be appointed at the state level—primarily the Minister of Energy—who must work closely with city authorities and crisis management teams.
I would add that Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko responded to accusations of the capital’s alleged lack of preparation for winter and stated that following the Russian Federation’s massive strike on energy infrastructure, there was a lack of coordination on the part of the government.
“There is a lot of manipulation and outright lies circulating right now. As for whether Kyiv was ready for winter. I want to note that the day before the devastating massive strike, I had a meeting with the Prime Minister of Ukraine. […] I conveyed to him all the threats and risks that could arise as a result of serious damage to the capital’s critical infrastructure,” — Vitali Klitschko
At the same time, Kyiv is preparing for the worst-case scenarios: starting January 16, 50 mobile kitchens serving hot meals will begin operating in affected areas, and 24 powerful generators have been connected to residential areas on the Left Bank, which have already ensured the operation of 17 transformer substations, Prime Minister Yulia Sviridenko reported.
Evacuation of the population: action plan
Separately, Taras Zagorodniy, managing partner of the National Anti-Crisis Group, addressed the topic of potential instructions for the public in the event of a complete power outage or evacuation. According to him, such instructions must be prepared in advance, regardless of whether a critical moment has already arrived.
“Instructions must always be in place. Not just when the situation has already deteriorated. We simply had to prepare for this. It’s clear that we missed the mark somewhere,” Zagorodniy notes.
He emphasizes that honestly informing citizens is not scaremongering, but rather an element of responsible policy, especially in the context of war and forecasted cold snaps.
According to the expert, “prophetic abilities” were not required to predict massive attacks on the energy sector during periods of low temperatures. That is precisely why, in Zagorodniy’s view, the authorities should have scaled up ready-made solutions in advance and drawn on the experience of other cities.
The Experience of Kharkiv
Taras Zagorodniy cites Kharkiv as an example, which, despite constant shelling, turned out to be better prepared for crisis scenarios.
“Kharkiv is constantly under shelling, but they were better prepared there. We need to take this experience, scale it up, and allocate resources,” notes Zagorodniy.
Zagorodniy emphasizes that, given Kyiv’s budget, many solutions could and should have been implemented earlier.
The lights are going out one by one: an apocalyptic forecast from a lawmaker
There is currently no basis for evacuating Kyiv’s population. MP Olena Shulyak refutes rumors of a worst-case scenario for the capital. According to her, energy and utility services are coping with the load, and there are no signs indicating the need for immediate evacuation.
Shulyak emphasized that discussions of such scenarios are more akin to conjecture and political speculation than to decisions based on the actual operational situation.
At the same time, her colleague, MP Oleksandr Fedenko, is stoking panic and posting images of an apocalyptic cityscape generated by artificial intelligence on social media. He claims that Ukraine has already entered an active phase of the process where damage to a single element of critical infrastructure triggers a chain reaction of failures in other systems.
“The city is still standing, but it is already crumbling in a chain reaction. The lack of electricity is slowly but surely bringing the entire city to a standstill,” Fedenko wrote.
In his post, he describes in detail a scenario of gradual collapse, based on a passage from Mark Elsberg’s book. Power lines are down, accidents are occurring, cell towers are silent, mobile signals are disappearing, stores and cash registers are shutting down, gas stations are running on emergency power, ambulances are stuck in traffic, and hospitals are operating on backup power—but only temporarily.
Separately, the deputy draws attention to the depletion of Ukraine’s air defense resources and the lack of external support.
“Defending our skies, partners—sorry, but we’ve been abandoned… so we’re on our own. Next—stopping these cascading effects and finding a way out. That’s also a complicated matter that could lead to the destruction of our energy infrastructure,” said Oleksandr Fedienko.
The situation surrounding Kyiv’s energy security has exposed several systemic problems at once.
First, the threat of massive strikes on the energy sector during the cold snap is real and predictable, not hypothetical.
Second, the key risk remains not the power outage scenario itself, but the lack of clear coordination, defined responsibilities, and unified communication between the central government and the capital.
Third, the public dissonance between the reassuring statements of some politicians and the apocalyptic predictions of others only heightens public anxiety. Honest dialogue, pre-developed scenarios, and drawing on the experience of cities on the front lines can serve as the safeguard that distinguishes genuine preparedness from chaos and panic.
