AAs part of its hybrid warfare strategy, Russia has been targeting Ukrainian grain silos, schools, hospitals, power plants, and more for two and a half years. Failing to overrun Ukraine militarily, the Kremlin has increasingly focused on making the country uninhabitable. This strategy is not new. But in 2024, wave after wave of basic infrastructure has been hit with previously unknown precision and ferocity. The biggest target now is the country’s energy sector, and in particular its ability to generate electricity.
Between 2022 and 2024, Russia attacked about 50% of Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, including repeatedly taking the Zaporizhia Nuclear Power Plant offline and bombing the Kakhovka Dam. Transmission lines and substations were also frequently hit, but Ukrainian engineering and power line teams proved extremely diligent, quick and skillful in repairing them. Difficulties in obtaining replacement autotransformers sometimes led to prolonged power outages, but Ukraine recovered relatively quickly and survived both the 2022-2023 and 2023-2024 winters. This time is different.
About 60 percent of Ukraine’s electricity generation has failed as Russian precision bombs, drone strikes and missile attacks increasingly target power plants and energy infrastructure. The country is currently suffering the worst blackouts since Russia’s full-scale invasion began in February 2022.
Ukraine’s ability to regenerate and rebuild is now overwhelmed, at least for the immediate future. Since March alone, over 9 gigawatts of electricity generation have been lost. More hydroelectric plants have been destroyed, including the Dnipro plant, the largest still operating. Solar power plants too. Every single one of the coal and natural gas plants has been hit, and of the original 13, only two are still operating. DTEK, Ukraine’s largest private energy company, has lost 90 percent of its generating capacity. The current national electricity deficit is about 35 percent.
Four months of brutal attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure have caused so much damage that even in Kyiv, electricity is only available for ten hours a day – in some other cities, it’s as low as four. Reconstruction will take years. The situation will get even worse in winter. DTEK managers estimate there could be up to 20 hours of blackouts per day in winter. And several of the destroyed power plants were combined power and heating plants, so it will not only be dark, but also very cold amid Ukraine’s notoriously harsh winters. People will almost certainly die from the cold or lack of medical care.
There are numerous proposals and ideas for how Ukraine can survive this winter. Ukrenergo, the national power grid company, is working in the public and private sectors to bring new generation and storage capacity online, with the highest priority given to developing decentralized rather than centralized plants. Ukraine already imports electricity from Poland and other neighboring countries, but imports cannot sufficiently make up the difference and are expensive. Rebuilding thermal power plants makes little sense in the long term, both because of Ukraine’s climate commitments and because gas and coal have become scarcer due to Russian sanctions. So the focus is on renewables in the near future and nuclear in the long term. Private generators are immediately running across the country for those who can afford the plants and the diesel to keep them running.
While these possible solutions are beginning to take shape, Ukraine is in partial darkness and a state of inoperability that is gradually eroding its resilience. People cannot work, bank, access medical care, use their phones or the internet, etc. because of the blackout. Schools cannot operate normally. Neither can businesses. That in turn means less money for people, and also less tax revenue to fund the government and the war effort. And many may eventually make the difficult decision to leave their country because life, already difficult, has become even more difficult.
But this bleakness does not mean that Ukraine’s supporters should write off Ukraine. Nor should they stop supporting Kyiv, even as global attention has shifted to Israel’s escalating war and the U.S. presidential election. Friendly countries are still looking for badly needed power grid spare parts to supply to Ukraine. Any shipment of new military support, now including F-16 fighter jets, helps Ukraine survive. Equipping Ukraine with air defense systems or allowing Kyiv to take offensive action against Russia could mean a more determined defensive posture. At the very least, the West should help Ukraine regain enough land to strengthen its negotiating position with Russia if real peace talks ever take place.
As Ukraine waits for more help, perhaps its most important defense strategy against Russia is that its people remain somewhat optimistic. Despite the brutality of the war and the looming disaster of winter with massive power outages, only 44% of citizens want to negotiate with Russia. A full 88% believe Ukraine will win the war, and 80% see the country’s future as bright. Their optimism should not make Ukraine’s supporters complacent. As many Ukrainians are quick to explain, they are a resilient people. And they must be.
