Russia’s campaign against Ukraine’s energy infrastructure is forcing the country to rethink a system built around large power plants and long transmission lines. The answer is increasingly decentralized generation: smaller gas-fired units, cogeneration, batteries, modular boiler houses, renewables, and backup systems closer to consumers.
Kyiv has been expanding smaller, distributed sources of electricity and heat, alongside storage and backup generation, to make energy supply less vulnerable to Russian strikes. But it still depends on local implementation.
The decisive question will be if Ukraine’s municipalities have the institutional capacity to turn money, equipment, and plans into functioning systems.
In March, comprehensive resilience plans for regions and regional centers were approved. They focused on protection of critical infrastructure, development of distributed generation, backup and alternative power, and decentralization of heat generation. Kyiv said these were long-term measures to strengthen communities beyond a single winter.
In June, the government allocated 67.8bn hryvnias ($1.5bn) for implementation of regional resilience plans, with another 9.6bn hryvnias provided by local budgets. The following month, ministers approved a mechanism for allocating an additional 40bn hryvnias for the coming winter.
It was a major commitment, but it tackles only part of the problem.
Energy projects require feasibility studies, technical design, land or premises, grid connection, procurement, construction, installation, testing, and commissioning. And this implementation gap is becoming increasingly important.
A 2026 analysis found only 69 municipalities — about 5% — had approved local energy plans. It concluded that the constraint was not simply a lack of funding, but the limited capacity of communities to prepare and implement projects, and fully absorb available financing.
The differences between Ukrainian cities illustrate the problem.
Kharkiv, which faces extreme energy challenges after repeated attacks on its infrastructure, has developed an extensive relationship with international financial institutions, for example. Its experience suggests administrative capacity, international partnerships, and the ability to plan and implement complex projects are vital.
In June, it reached financing agreements to modernize its heating system with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) totaling €47m ($53m), including a €17m grant from the European Union, showing that extreme physical vulnerability can coexist with strong institutional capacity.
Meanwhile, authorities in Ukraine’s capital are working to develop an updated resilience plan around the need to maintain essential services during attacks and disruptions.
Kyiv has the advantages of scale: a large municipal budget, substantial technical expertise, established international relationships, and the ability to manage complex infrastructure projects. But it’s a model that cannot simply be copied by a small municipality with a much smaller budget and limited technical staff.
Chernihiv, northeast of Kyiv, has been preparing its heating and utility infrastructure while also expanding its reserve power capacity, and in August received 17 generators ranging from 50 to 200 KW for critical infrastructure and social facilities.
But what happens next is crucial, and questions remain. How quickly can the equipment be installed? Are the electrical connections ready? Are there the staff and money to operate and maintain the equipment? Can fuel be secured? Can the systems function as part of a wider local energy network?
Rather than attempting to make an entire city independent from the national grid, municipalities can create layers of resilience around individual critical facilities. A hospital, school, or administrative building can have its own generation and storage, reducing dependence on a single external source.
The advantage is flexibility; the disadvantage is that thousands of small projects require coordination, technical expertise, procurement capacity, and maintenance. In other words, decentralization increases the importance of local government capacity rather than reducing it.
Winter preparation is not an ordinary infrastructure program, and timing is vital. A project completed in December may have little value if it was supposed to protect a city during November outages.
When money reaches a municipality, the question is whether it can spend it quickly enough. Cities with strong administrative capacity move ahead, while communities with fewer resources remain dependent on emergency assistance.
Funding is increasingly concentrated in a relatively small number of cities, and many communities lack the institutional capacity needed to secure funds as well as to prepare and implement complex energy-efficiency and infrastructure projects.
This suggests the next stage of international assistance should place greater emphasis on the capacity to deliver.
Donors and international financial institutions could help municipalities finance not only equipment but also the back-office work on projects, including feasibility studies, design, training and project management.
The same principle should shape Ukrainian state policy. If resilience funding is distributed through complex procedures that smaller municipalities cannot navigate, money will naturally concentrate in places that already have the strongest administrative teams, leaving the weakest communities exposed.
Ukraine could benefit from the deployment of regional or national technical teams to help smaller municipalities prepare projects, conduct procurement, manage donor requirements, and complete grid connections.
Supporting resilience should mean more than delivering hardware. It should mean helping communities build the institutional capacity to use that hardware effectively. The coming winter is a test not only of Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, but of its administrative capacity.
Kateryna Odarchenko is a political consultant, a partner of the SIC Group Ukraine, and president of the PolitA Institute for Democracy and Development. A specialist practicing in the field of political communication and projects, she has practical experience in the implementation of all-Ukrainian political campaigns and party-building.
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