Financial Times: Russia changes its tactics for attacking Ukraine's energy sector

Russia has changed its tactics for attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, using precision-guided missiles instead of large-scale strikes to destroy power plants in regions less well protected by air defenses than Kyiv. Some of the plants will not be fully repaired before next winter. The Financial Times (FT) reported this today, citing Ukrainian officials. They said the damage is greater than during the winter spanning 2022 and 2023, when Russian airstrikes caused major power outages across Ukraine.

Last winter, Russia tried to plunge Ukrainian cities into darkness and cold by targeting substations and transformer stations across the country, said Maksym Timchenko, chief executive of private Ukrainian energy company DTEK. Russian missiles are now targeting power plants in specific regions in order to “destroy them completely, because power plants cannot be restored in a short time”. According to the FT, Russia is seeking to inflict more lasting or irreparable damage on Ukraine.

Between 22 and 29 March, the Russian invading army attacked seven thermal power plants, and its missiles also hit two hydropower plants, the newspaper reported. Ukraine has not provided details on the extent of the damage at individual facilities, but officials said several were almost completely destroyed.

“The same number of missiles they used in the winter attacks (2022/2023) were now aimed at five to six energy facilities in one region,” said Marija Caturjanová, a spokesperson for energy company Ukrenergo.

“They are trying to cut off major industrial regions and cities from energy supplies,” she added.

A second difference compared with the winter of 2022/2023 is that Russia is also using expensive precision-guided ballistic missiles, said Andrij Herus, head of the parliamentary energy committee. In one recent strike on a coal-fired power plant, the Russians used ballistic missiles worth $100 million (more than CZK 2.3 billion), he said, while Ukraine has only a few US-made Patriot air defense systems capable of shooting them down.

Russia continues to use cheaper attack drones on a large scale, but is directing them instead at other parts of the energy system, such as transformer stations, said Andrij Čerňak, a spokesperson for Ukraine’s military intelligence.

Although the damage is more lasting than in the winter spanning 2022 and 2023, its overall scale is more limited, and its effects are being temporarily mitigated by a combination of significant electricity imports from the European Union, domestic solar power plants and warm weather, Herus said. Timchenko made a similar point, saying that without the warm weather, energy imports from the EU and increased renewable energy generation, Ukraine would have experienced extensive outages like those of the previous winter.

After Russia’s 2022 invasion, Ukraine connected its energy grid to neighboring EU countries: Romania, Slovakia, Hungary and Poland. The current warm weather means that solar power generates 20 to 25 percent of the country’s energy consumption at midday, Herus said. According to Timchenko, renewable energy could help Ukraine more in the long term. Wind farms and solar power plants are dispersed, making it impossible for attacks to knock out generation in the same way, he said.