Yes, sometimes, of course, they didn’t have.
Such calamities happen all around the Nor'easter Eurasia inside the USSR old borders from time to time, usually in places where life-supporting housing infrastructure permanently suffers from insufficient funding. Note how European January zero deg C isotherm runs approximately alongside the former borders of Warsaw Pact.
One random earlier example of housing BSOD from Russia: https://76.ru/text/winter/2020/12/28/69666891/ December 2020
And from Uzbekistan https://podrobno.uz/cat/obchestvo/resursy-na-iskhode-v-khokimiyate-obyasnili-pochemu-v-tashkente-voznikli-problemy-s-gazom-/ December 2022
And from Ukraine (sensu stricto Donbass, that belongs now mainly to Russia, but it happened long before its annexation into Russia proper)
