All winterlong, Russia has rained a relentless ballistic barrage on Kyiv and other major cities, targeting the energy and heat supply for millions of people. Attacks on power transmission have included disrupted electricity supply to Ukraine’s nuclear power plants, forcing them to cut output. Citizens are rationed to just a few hours of power each day in sub-zero temperatures.
Despite the heroic efforts of engineers working around the clock to maintain services, Ukraine’s power network is being systematically broken into shattered islands. The aim is not just to bring the brutality of war into Ukrainian homes, but also to strike its war industries and support systems.
The pattern of strikes indicates Russia is trying to fragment the infrastructure that sustains the war effort. While diplomats discuss settlements, the Kremlin is betting that Ukraine’s ability to repair tanks, move ammunition, and keep the lights on in weapons factories will collapse before any negotiations conclude.
Since December, Russian aerial strikes have followed a precise strategy aimed at dividing Ukraine’s energy system into two parts along the Dnipro river, separating the right and left banks.
The Kremlin is pursuing what engineers call “islanding,” with the goal of breaking Ukraine’s grid into isolated pockets that must operate independently and are unable to redistribute power from functioning generation to support areas of demand.
The repair depots, logistics hubs, and production facilities that keep Ukraine’s armed forces fighting depend on the transmission lines Moscow is severing.
Russian strikes have already destroyed or disabled a large share of Ukraine’s thermal and hydropower generation, leaving the system able to meet only around 60% of national electricity demand under normal conditions. And, as a result of islanding, even that reduced generation cannot be reliably transmitted to where it is needed.
Facing a grinding attritional war, Russian commanders decided to concentrate their aerial attacks on vulnerable 750kV and 330kV high-voltage substations and transmission lines, which Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal calls the “foundation of the energy system.” They are the circulatory systems of the grid.
The new strategy is relentless, and it’s working. On February 7, Moscow launched a combined assault using cruise missiles, strategic aircraft, and attack drones against the Burshtyn and Dobrotvir thermal power plants and their primary substations, creating cascading shortages across the grid.
Two nights later, it struck again, this time in the remote western region of Volyn, disabling a substation near Novovolynsk. Some 80,000 people lost power, and engineers had to use secondary lines, which were not designed for a full-system load, to restore services.
The Kremlin’s islanding strategy means the three nuclear power plants still in Ukrainian hands, which together provide roughly half of the country’s electricity generation, have had to reduce output or temporarily shut down. Safe operation of reactors relies on a steady external power supply, and when lines are cut, reactor output must be slowed.
Emergency imports from the EU, including recent supplies from Poland, can temporarily stabilize the grid, but they cannot sustain the industrial base on which Ukraine’s war effort depends.
The impact of the damage is clear in the repair and refurbishment hubs which sustain Ukraine’s army and need stable voltage and a continuous power supply. When Russia fragments the grid, these hubs suffer disproportionately.
Armored vehicle maintenance slows, artillery barrels take longer to refurbish, air-defense systems wait for repair, and each disruption stretches repair cycles and cascades through the supply chain.
Repeated power cuts also push Ukrainian defense manufacturers into crisis, as they self-finance equipment recovery, relocate facilities, and absorb financial losses. Contractual obligations leave them no choice, and insurance doesn’t cover the damage.
The result is that they divert resources away from scaling production and expanding capacity. Even if critical facilities are reconnected first, it doesn’t offset the overall shrinking supply.
Russia’s focus has also shifted westward, toward the logistics corridors that connect Ukraine to Poland and other NATO supply lines. Strikes along west-east routes reveal the strategy’s evolution as the Kremlin seeks to sever the arteries that move equipment, ammunition, and fuel to the front.
Rail networks, depots, and switching yards depend on reliable electricity to operate efficiently, and the further west the strikes extend, the closer they move to the Polish border and NATO’s supply lines into Ukraine.
What can be done?
As an immediate first step, Ukraine needs more Gepard and Skynex gun-based air defense systems, specifically for energy grid protection, with deployments concentrated on generation sites and transmission nodes. Compressors and transformers must also be stockpiled and deployable under fire. Other funding can flow through NATO’s Prioritized Ukraine Requirements List (PURL) to buy US equipment for the nodes.
Such spending could be the difference between Ukraine’s capacity to sustain war and its gradual, irreversible collapse. European allies said on February 13 they would send $38bn in military aid to Ukraine this year, including at least $2bn for air defenses.
But the real challenge is not technical or even financial, but political. Europe must treat Ukraine’s electricity grid as strategic military infrastructure, equivalent in importance to command centers or ammunition depots.
This will require a reordering of priorities and recognition that every day Russia operates without cost is a day the Kremlin believes it can wait out European resolve.
Officials in Brussels and in talks in the UAE must understand clearly that without a functioning Ukrainian energy grid, there is nothing to negotiate. Europe must act as if the outcome depends on it. Because it does.
Maksym Beznosiuk is a strategy and security analyst and writer whose work focuses on Russia, Ukraine, and international security.
William Dixon is a Senior Associate Fellow of the Royal United Services Institute, specializing in cyber and international security issues.
Europe’s Edge is CEPA’s online journal covering critical topics on the foreign policy docket across Europe and North America. All opinions expressed on Europe’s Edge are those of the author alone and may not represent those of the institutions they represent or the Center for European Policy Analysis. CEPA maintains a strict intellectual independence policy across all its projects and publications.
Ukraine 2036
How Today’s Investments Will Shape Tomorrow’s Security
CEPA Forum 2025
Explore CEPA’s flagship event.
