A Conflict of Energy Attrition, Demoralizing a Population

 

"[Our generating capacity] is down to zero."

"An unprecedented number of missiles and countless drones – several per minute – targeted the same thermal power plants that we had restored after the devastating attack of 2024." 

Ukrainian state power firm Centerenergo

 

"The enemy inflicted a massive strike with ballistic missiles, which are extremely difficult to shoot down."

"It is hard to recall such a number of direct strikes on energy facilities since the beginning of the invasion."

"Russia is deliberately endangering nuclear safety in Europe. We call for an urgent meeting of the IAEA Board of Governors to respond to these unacceptable risks."

Kyiv's Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha 

Power outages caused by Russian drone attacks have left much of Ukraine in darkness. Photograph: Maxym Marusenko/NurPhoto/Shutterstock

"[Kyiv’s development of its own long-range capabilities] has eroded what started as a near-total Russian advantage [in attacks on the energy sector]."

"If Ukraine can continue expanding its arsenal and can keep up the strike campaign, Russian decision makers will eventually have to ask themselves whether attacking the Ukrainian grid is really worth it."

Eric Ciaramella, senior fellow, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Washington  

This is the third winter Ukrainians have experienced with  tenuous links to the state power grid, resulting from Russian strikes. The people of Ukraine have braved it through winter after winter with reduced power as outages can occur at any time under Russian barrages meant to cripple the national grid for the very distinct purpose of degrading the Ukrainian population's will to continue the conflict under such circumstances. 

 

Adapting to living in the dark, without reliable heat during the long winter months has been difficult, but Ukrainians were stoic under fire, refusing to become demoralized and thus surrendering to the Russian plan to place their government under pressure to plead for peace under Russian terms of territorial conquest. "Everyone has more or less adapted", stated Oleksandra Kovalenko. "If we can somehow live without electricity, then living without gas -- I'm afraid to even picture it. I don't want to", she said grimly.

 

When the power grid is impacted her family uses power banks; the children  use headlamps to do their homework. The steady flow of gas kept the radiators warm during the wartime winters in the family's Kyiv apartment. Until latterly Russian attacks have expanded, not only striking the nation's power grid, but its gas infrastructure as well. Strikes on wells, storage sites, pipeline and related critical components have become the new reality.

 

Ukrainians are relying on makeshift power sources, such as this reading lamp connected to a power bank, during blackouts caused by Russian drone attacks. Photograph: Sergey Kozlov/EPA

 

For 80 percent of households in Ukraine gas provides heat and cooking fuel, according to chief executive of Naftogaz, Sergii Koretskyi. Centalized heating systems powered by gas provide for most apartment blocks in Ukraine. Because Ukraine's gas network was used to transport Russian gas to Europe, Moscow mostly avoided striking those networks for the first three years of the war. Now, however, Russian gas no longer flows through Ukraine.

 

And drones and missiles destroyed roughly 40 percent of Ukraine's gas production capacity back in February and March. Leaving Naftogaz the summer to repair infrastructure, work that was completed by September with full restoration of capacity. Until last month, when 60 percent of production capacity was once again knocked out when Naftogaz facilities were struck seven times.

 

A person stands by an emergency vehicle as fire and smoke rise around the Shatura Power Station in Shatura, Russia, after Ukrainian drones struck the facility early Sunday, Moscow region governor Andrei Vorobyov said, in this still image taken from a social media video released November November 23, 2025. SOCIAL MEDIA/via REUTERS

 

Experts warn that should these assaults continue, millions will struggle to maintain warmth this winter, with fear growing that where Ukraine was not broken by the electrical grid bringing darkness, plunging the population into an unrelievedly cold winter night, the gas strikes might. Naftogaz is involved in the importation of billions of cubic meters of gas, while President Volodymyr Zelensky depends on European leaders to secure gas supplies and funding, while his government contemplates purchasing American liquified natural gas.

 

Cogeneration plants that produce both electricity and heat, some of them operating on gas, have also been struck. According to Mr. Koretskyi, Ukraine needs to import 4.4 billion cubic meters of gas to enable it to get through winter. The cost is almost $2 billion, and Ukraine has managed to secure close to three-quarters of the funding required. President Zelenskyy vows, for his part to give as good as his country gets, and his military has succeeded in hitting Russian heating and power plants in retaliatory strikes. 

"[This winter] could be the harshest [since Russia’s full-scale invasion began in 2022]."

"Since September, Russia has been hitting every kind of energy asset — mines, power stations, substations, power lines, gas production and gas storage."

Maxim Timchenko, chief executive officer of DTEK, Ukraine’s largest private energy company  

 

The Russian Military, Conscripts, Thugs and Criminals

"Three prisoners told human rights activists that businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin was allegedly coming to the colony."

"Firstly, recruiters show interest in those convicted for murder and robbery. Those inmates in prison for drug and sex offences are normally not selected."

"Wagner recruiters refuse elderly people and those with serious illnesses."

"To check, they are asked to do push-ups on the floor, sit-ups and perform other physical exercises."

Verstka news Website 

Putin is turning to prisons to recruit frontline personnel (Image: Getty)

First there were rumours months ago that Russia was sending raw recruits, young Russian men conscripted into the Russian military, half-trained and never informed initially where they were going and why, into Ukraine for Russia's 'special military operation'. Russian mothers of these young men receiving confused messages from their sons were outraged and many complained vociferously. Now, many among them mourn the loss of those young recruits, with the conflict burning through countless Russian and Ukrainian military servicemen.

From raw recruits, alongside seasoned veterans who have gained a reputation for themselves and for Russia as war criminals, not merely soldiers in their penchant for attacking and murdering Ukrainian civilians, for bombing civilian infrastructure, for raping and looting, a critical shortage of military personnel, not only at the lower levels, but leaders and commanders, is sending the Kremlin through the intervention of Putin supporters, to prisons.

The issue of insufficient numbers of frontline personnel has influenced a Kremlin insider, Yevgeny Prigozhin, chief of the secretive Wagner Group, a militia known as brutal mercenaries for hire. They have seen action in some of the world's hot spots, including Africa, where their fighting expertise minus any persuasive sense of morality has earned them an unenviable reputation for brutality and efficiency as a conflict tool any group can hire.

But it is loyal to Russia, and Prigozhin is a personal friend and ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, in service to his interests, and his interests at the present time is the total destruction of Ukraine as a nation imagining itself sovereign and democratic. The "Russian Sitting" charity whose purpose for existence is the support of families of convicts, worked alongside the Wagner Group to help recruit prisoners to fight in Ukraine. They did caution inmates this option did not represent an easy escape from a prison sentence.

Russia has lost over 42,000 troops since the start of the war (Image: Getty)

On its website, the "Russian Sitting" charity informed the families of the convicts that all the promises made by Wagner and other Russian mercenary groups such as Shield, Slavic Corps, Patriot and Redut are legally impossible to enforce and that they should not be trusted. That's called 'eyes wide open'. Recruits to Wagner are offered 200,000 roubles (€3,202) as a monthly salary along with a presidential pardon and a “coffin payment” to the family of the mercenary if he is killed.

Once the inspection procedure is completed, those convicts that are accepted into the program are sent to basic military training before joining frontline forces in the Donbas region. The report published in the Verstka news website claimed that up to a thousand criminals from 17 prisons were persuaded by Wagner to sign up to fight in Ukraine once their physical  condition was verified as well as a stated allegiance to "defend the Motherland"; top recruiting criteria.

The Wagner group have wide support in Pro-Putin circles (Image: Getty)

Russia's Invasion of Ukraine Not Going Quite as Planned

"The occupiers cannot win on the battlefield, so they resort to the killing of civilians."

"After the enemy was dislodged from Snake Island, he decided to respond with the cynical shelling of civilian targets."

Ivan Bakanov, head, SBU, Ukraine security service

"These missiles, Kh-22, were designed to destroy aircraft carriers and other large warships, and the Russian army used them against an ordinary nine-storey building with ordinary civilian people [within it]."

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy

"[The Russian pullback from Snake Island bears] colossal psychological significance [for Ukraine]."

"Snake Island is key for controlling the Black Sea and could help cover the Russian attack if the Kremlin opted for an amphibian landing operation in Odesa or elsewhere in the region."

"Now, those plans are pushed back."

Oleh Zhdano, Ukrainian military analyst

Russia said it pulled out its forces from Ukraine's Snake Island as a 'goodwill gesture.' Ukraine’s military, however, said the Russians fled after relentless attacks by its forces.

 

At great cost, both to the aggressor and to the victim, Ukrainian resolve in responding in kind to the Russian military, using all means at their disposal to defend and push back the enemy invader. A choreograph that has provided a dramatic war theatre totally unexpected in the courage displayed by Ukrainians in their time of existential crisis while at the same time amply demonstrating the lack of military expertise and personnel coordination an invading military as well equipped as Russia's has the potential to encounter in its losses of senior military personnel and equipment.

The Kremlin, along with Vladimir Putin must be writhing in futile fury over the time, personnel and material being consumed by this ill-advised venture they so confidently launched. Not to mention how degraded their reputation has become throughout the international community as a viciously despised tyranny whose irenic display of territorial aggression has appalled the free world. The far-reaching effect of Russia's costly war in lives and infrastructure, has placed food dependent nations in a vulnerable position, awaiting a replacement source of grains and edible oils.

Russia is fuelling the cost of its misadventure with gas and oil sales to energy-hungry nations that have become energy-dependent on its natural resources. And despite Europe beginning to wean itself away from consuming Russian resources, China and India have stepped into the breach. The price of fuel has escalated thanks to the conflict, as has food products and Russia is the beneficiary of those higher prices. A conflict whose complications have embroiled not only Europe but the broader world community.

 

Ukrainian soldiers run for cover during an artillery duel between Ukrainian and Russian troops in Lysychansk. (Aris Messinis/AFP/Getty Images)

 

Yet another Russian airstrike on residential areas in Ukraine has once again demolished civic buildings and destroyed Ukrainian civilian lives. The small town of Serhilvka, relatively near Odeaa was hit by three missiles aimed at civilian areas and taken as representative of payback by the Kremlin for the humiliation of having to withdraw from the strategic Snake Island because of Ukrainian military bombardment against the Russian military stationed there.

Back in the initial stages of the invasion, the Russian navy took control of the island planning to use it as a stage for an eventual assault on Odesa, the largest port in Ukraine, and headquarters of its navy. From the start to the present, the Russian military has deliberately targeted civilian enclaves; hospitals, apartment buildings, schools, despite claiming it does no such thing. Kyiv and its regions were struck by Russian missiles again last weekend following calm after the Russian military retreat when plans to occupy Kyiv were foiled.

A shopping mall in the central city of Kremenchuk where scores of people died was also carried out last week. Russian forces continue their strategy in eastern Ukraine to encircle the city of Lysychansk representing the final stronghold of resistance in Luhansk, which beside Donetsk, make up the Donbas region. "The shelling of the city is very intensive. The occupiers are destroying one  house after another with heavy artillery and other weapons. Residents of Lysychansk are hiding in basements almost round the clock", advised Luhansk Governor Serhiy Haidal.

Buildings destroyed by a military strike are seen in Lysychansk. (Oleksandr Ratushniak/Reuters)

Russia Sustaining Troop Losses

Russian President Vladimir Putin sits in a meeting with Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko in Sochi, Russia. The image, via Russian state media, is dated May 23, 2022.

Sputnik/Ramil Sitdikov/Kremlin via Reuters

"In the first three months of its 'special military operation', Russia has likely suffered a similar death toll to that experienced by the Soviet Union during its nine-year war in Afghanistan."

"[From 1979 to 1989 the Soviet Union lost 15,000 servicemen, thousands more wounded; Ukraine's military estimates Russian personnel losses of 29,200 since February24]."

British Ministry of Defence

"There were attempts to kill Putin."

"There was an assassination attempt recently by, as they call it, representatives of the Caucasus. This was not in the public domain."

"A completely failed attempt, but it really did happen about two months ago."

Major Gen. Kyryulo Budanov, Kyiv military intelligence official

Smoke rises in the city of Sievierodonetsk during heavy fighting between Ukrainian and Russian troops in eastern Ukraine's Donbas region, May 30, 2022, on the 96th day of Russia's invasion of Ukraine

 

History most certainly would have recorded a vastly altered turn of events had a purported attempt at assassination of Russia's long-serving strongman succeeded, shortly after ordering the invasion of Ukraine. An attempt that Ukraine's top intelligence official noted was foiled by Russian authorities. No details were forthcoming and whether this was in reference to Russia's North Caucasus or the South Caucasus remained a mystery.

The claim, however, was cast into doubt by Western officials. COVID isolaton protocols have remained in place so the potential for immediate access to the Russian president would be beyond difficult, for any reason. "[Were] anyone to attempt to do something like that it would be a hugely complex operation", a Russian official speaking anonymously, stated.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned that close to a hundred soldiers could die every day in the battle over Ukraine's industrial heartland in southern Ukraine where on the battlefields, Moscow's forces continue to sustain heavy losses, even as British intelligence claims that Russia lost as many men in the first three months of the Ukraine campaign as did the Soviet Union in its quagmire of a campaign, spending nine years in Afghanistan.

In the current campaign, the 'special military operation' that Vladimir Putin states is meant to cleanse Ukraine of the 'Nazi' element governing the country, Moscow is focused on encircling Ukrainian forces to succeed in its intention to fully occupy the Luhansk and Donetsk provinces making up the Donbas where separatist ethnic Russian forces aligned with Moscow claim the province as a separate enclave, completely autonomous.

Moscow, in a claim of delicious irony, accuses Ukrainian nationals of carrying out "terror attacks" on pro-Russian officials in occupied regions of southern Ukraine.Ukraine's worst military loss from a single attack of the war took place with 87 people killed as Russian forces struck a military barracks housing troops at a training base in the north in a May 27 strike in the town of Desna.

Russian troops now aspire to capture Sievierodonetsk which lies in the easternmost part of a pocket held by Ukraine in the Donbas, one of the last areas of Luhansk still eluding Russia's grasp. Russia, said Luhansk governor Serhiy Gaidal, was "wiping Sevierodonetsk from the face of the earth", attempting to advance from three directions to overrun the city, and cut off a highway south of Sievierodonetsk -- with a prewar population of some 100,000 -- may become another Mariupol.

A photograph shows an explosion in the city of Sievierodonetsk during heavy fighting between Ukrainian and Russian troops in eastern Ukraine's Donbas region, May 30, 2022.