During the winter of 2025–2026, the Russian Federation continued its systematic campaign of attacks against Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, but the nature of these strikes changed significantly. Whereas in 2022–2024 the primary targets were large power plants and major transmission hubs, by 2025 Russian strategy increasingly shifted toward mass attacks on small substations, distribution nodes, and local elements of the power grid using large groups of kamikaze drones.
This transformation has not only a military dimension but also a pronounced humanitarian one. Its consequences include longer local blackouts, increased pressure on air defense systems, and greater vulnerability of the civilian population during the winter period.
Unlike large power plants:
- small substations have minimal physical protection;
- they are widely dispersed across the country;
- they are practically impossible to fully protect with air defense systems;
- even minor damage can disable entire districts.
This strategy creates an effect of “distributed exhaustion,” in which the energy system is not destroyed by a single strike but gradually loses stability due to hundreds of localized damages.
Even with high operational effectiveness, Ukraine’s air defense system is physically incapable of simultaneously protecting thousands of small infrastructure facilities. Prioritizing the defense of major cities and critical military sites automatically means lower protection for local energy nodes in the regions.
As a result:
- attacks have become cheaper for Russia;
- the burden on Ukraine’s air defense system has sharply increased;
- repair crews operate under conditions of constant exhaustion;
- civilians face chronic instability in electricity supply.
The Humanitarian Effect as Part of the Strategy
Although the formal target of the attacks is the energy system, their real impact is felt most strongly by civilians.
During winter, electricity in Ukraine means:
- heating; access to water;
- operation of hospitals; functioning of pharmacies;
- communication and internet access;
- preservation of food and medicines;
- the possibility of physical survival for millions of people.
The most vulnerable groups include:
- elderly people;
- patients with cardiovascular and respiratory diseases;
- individuals dependent on electrically powered medical devices;
- residents of rural areas;
- internally displaced persons;
- low-income families.
There is currently no official consolidated statistics regarding deaths from hypothermia or the consequences of prolonged blackouts during the winter season of 2025–2026. In March 2026, the Kyiv City State Administration stated that no deaths directly linked to power or heating outages had been recorded in official reports.
Volunteers and humanitarian workers note that the real consequences of winter blackouts may be significantly more severe than official statistics suggest. According to them, many elderly people were forced to live in apartments with critically low temperatures, while hypothermia is often not recorded as the cause of death. Instead, cold conditions trigger strokes, cardiovascular complications, and respiratory illnesses, which are then listed in medical reports. As a result, some of the so-called “white deaths” may remain statistically invisible.
According to estimates from volunteers and observers, the number of indirect deaths linked to cold and prolonged blackouts during the 2025–2026 season likely amounts to dozens of cases, while some estimates suggest the figure could reach approximately 200 people nationwide.
Legal Dimension: The Boundary Between Military Targets and Collective Punishment
International humanitarian law does not prohibit attacks on facilities that may have military significance. However, it strictly prohibits:
- disproportionate attacks;
- actions causing excessive suffering to civilians;
- attacks on objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population.
Systematic strikes on the energy system during winter create a predictable humanitarian effect:
- cold in residential buildings;
- disruption of medical services;
- water supply problems;
- risks for people with chronic illnesses;
- increased mortality among the most vulnerable groups.
In practice, this represents a model of warfare aimed at exhausting civilian infrastructure, where the humanitarian impact becomes part of the strategic calculation.
Conclusion:
Systematic strikes on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure in 2025–2026 increasingly exhibit the characteristics of a strategy aimed at exhausting the civilian population by creating conditions dangerous to life, health, and basic survival.
Recommendations:
- strengthen international monitoring of the humanitarian consequences of attacks on energy infrastructure;
- document indirect victims of blackouts and hypothermia;
- expand deliveries of air defense systems to protect critical infrastructure;
- support the decentralization of Ukraine’s energy system;ensure international investigations into possible violations of international humanitarian law and war crimes.