Criminal Case Over Power Outages Near Yaroslavl

The Investigative Committee (SK) has opened a criminal case in connection with repeated power outages in the village of Shchedrino, Yaroslavl Oblast. The investigation is being conducted under Part 1 of Article 238 of the Russian Criminal Code, which concerns the provision of services that fail to meet safety requirements for the life and health of consumers.

The power supply disruptions occurred on 23 and 24 January 2026. One resident of Shchedrino recounted that on 23 January, electricity was absent from 3:30 to 11:30, and the next day, 24 January, the power supply resumed and then cut off repeatedly from around 7:30 in the morning throughout the entire day. «That day I woke up from the cold in the apartment, as it was –20°C (–4°F) outside,» she noted. The power supply was fully restored by 18:00–18:30 on 24 January.

The head of the Yaroslavl municipal district, Alexei Mikhailov, reported that the failures were caused by a shutdown at the main «Shchedrino» substation. During the repair period, the village was supplied with electricity from a generator. Similar problems were recorded in other settlements of the district, including the Karabikha rural settlement and the Nagorny village. By 18:00 on 24 January, power supply across the entire Yaroslavl district was fully restored.

The Chairman of the Investigative Committee, Alexander Bastrykin, has taken this criminal case under his personal control. The press service of the federal agency explained that for several years, due to the poor state of utility networks, vital resources have been supplied with interruptions, leading to failures in water supply and heating systems. «Since January of this year, the temperature regime in residential premises again does not meet established standards. Appeals to various authorities have yielded no results, and no measures are being taken to modernize the networks and resolve the problem,» the Investigative Committee stated.