Russia has said it would agree to a limited cease-fire that would stop attacks on energy infrastructure, a proposal Kyiv has signaled it is open to but has yet to officially approve. An agreement would be the first significant step toward de-escalation since the start of the full-scale war more than three years ago.
On Wednesday, Ukraine and Russia traded accusations of attacks against each other’s energy infrastructure, a day after the proposed agreement was reported, highlighting the lack of trust between the two countries and how tenuous any deal would be.
Strikes against energy facilities have been a key part of both countries’ efforts to weaken the other. Russia has launched repeated attacks on Ukraine’s power grid to undermine its war effort by making life as difficult as possible for civilians, experts say. Ukraine’s strikes on Russian facilities are aimed at cutting the revenues of Russia’s sprawling oil industry, which have been used to fund the country’s military.
The Strategy Behind the Attacks
Russia began attacking Ukraine’s energy infrastructure in October 2022 after it became clear that its initial plan to achieve a swift victory had failed. Moscow opted for a war of attrition in which Ukraine’s energy infrastructure became a key target.
Ukraine began repeatedly targeting Russia’s energy infrastructure in early 2024 to try to inflict pain on the heart of the Russian economy — its oil and gas industry — and to limit the supply of fuel to its military. Kyiv’s aim appeared to be twofold, experts say: to reduce Russia’s oil revenues, and to produce a psychological effect by causing large-scale fires at critical infrastructure facilities.
Russian attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure have been a key part of Moscow’s effort to bring the country to its knees. The goal, energy experts say, has been to choke off the energy resources that fuel Ukraine’s economy and ultimately its war effort. But it also appears intended to make life so unbearable for people — plunging them into cold and darkness — that it breaks their morale.
Volodymyr Kudrytskyi, the former head of Ukrenergo, Ukraine’s national electricity operator, said Russia constantly changed its targets and tactics to undermine Ukraine’s ability to defend its energy system.
Moscow has used complex waves of long-range drones and ballistic missiles to overwhelm Kyiv’s air defenses. After Ukraine began reinforcing its main electricity substations with concrete bunkers, Russia shifted to striking thermal power plants directly and to attacking less protected substations connected to nuclear power plants.
The Effect on Russia
Over the past year, Ukrainian drones have flown deep into Russian territory, hitting oil refineries, depots, storage units, pipelines and pumping stations. The attacks have disrupted oil flows that pass through Russian seaport oil terminals and the Druzhba pipeline, which takes crude to some European countries.
That has threatened to undercut Moscow’s revenue from energy sales abroad. It has not been possible to independently determine how much of Russia’s oil revenues have been affected by the attacks.
The attacks on oil refineries reduced the country’s refining capacity by around 10 percent at one point, according to Reuters, which has been calculating the effect of damage.
But Russian oil giants have also been able to quickly repair some damage. According to Mikhail Krutikhin, an independent Russian energy analyst living in exile in Oslo, the damage inflicted on Russian oil refineries “has never been critical.”
Mr. Krutikhin said in a phone interview that Russia could always redirect crude oil flows away from a damaged refinery since the country has so many refineries. Sometimes, refineries had to start producing jet fuel that had more sulfur in it, he said.
“This is bad for the environment, but fighter jets can continue to fly,” Mr. Krutikhin said. He added, however, that the attacks could produce damage in the long term, because some parts of oil refineries might take years to get produced and installed.
Sergey Vakulenko, an energy expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a research group, said Russian oil companies had to spend no more than $1 billion to repair the damage inflicted by Ukrainian attacks.
The Effect on Ukraine
Since the fall of 2022, Moscow has repeatedly used drones and missiles to strike substations that distribute electricity, power plants that generate it, and, more recently, gas facilities.
The Kyiv School of Economics estimates that damage to Ukraine’s energy sector has reached at least $14.6 billion. Several hydroelectric and thermal power plants have been completely destroyed by the attacks.
By the end of last year, Ukraine’s total electricity-generating capacity had dropped to some 22 gigawatts, less than half of its prewar level, according to DiXi Group, a Ukrainian energy research organization.
The power shortages have forced Ukraine to impose nationwide rolling blackouts to ease strain on the grid. On some days, neighborhoods in Kyiv, the capital, had as little as four hours of electricity. Many civilians have resorted to candles to light homes and relied on cellphone flashlights to navigate unlit streets.
Water pumping systems have sometimes failed, making life difficult for citizens as the flow of running water to their homes was cut. During the first winter of the war, long lines formed at wells in Kyiv as residents hauled jugs of water back to their unheated apartments.
Still, Russia has failed in its attempts to completely collapse Ukraine’s energy system. Ukraine has endured the assaults, thanks to Western-supplied air defenses that enabled it to gradually intercept more Russian missiles, round-the-clock work by engineers to repair vital equipment and the energy-saving ingenuity of residents.
Ukraine has also relied on its three operational nuclear power stations, which Russia has avoided targeting to prevent a nuclear disaster, to meet up to half of the country’s electricity needs during certain periods.
Who Has More to Gain?
Experts say it is difficult to determine which country stands to gain more from a cease-fire on attacks targeting energy infrastructure.
Mr. Kudrytskyi said a pause would give Ukraine crucial time to repair substations and power plants without the threat of new strikes.
The cease-fire would also give Ukraine time to replenish its stocks of critical spare equipment, including valuable transformers needed to transmit electricity from power stations to people’s homes. Ukraine has burned through its stocks in an effort to replace damaged equipment.
For the Kremlin, the suspension in Ukrainian attacks would mean that the war and its effects would appear even more distant to the Russian public. Moscow also would no longer need to worry that such attacks could damage critical oil infrastructure.
