The Fourth Winter: Inside Russia's Evolving War on Ukraine's Energy

As Ukraine enters its fourth winter of full-scale war, Russia has unleashed an annihilation campaign against its energy infrastructure. Massive, coordinated strikes, including a barrage of 705 missiles and drones on October 30, 2025, signal a new and dangerous phase of this protracted energy war.

The humanitarian consequences have prompted the United Nations to issue stern warnings, but will Russia heed them? Matthias Schmale, the UN's humanitarian coordinator in Ukraine, has cautioned of a potential "major crisis within a crisis." The primary concern is for millions of civilians in high-rise buildings in frontline cities like Kharkiv and Dnipro. As temperatures drop, these populations could be "stuck without electricity or safe water for days on end", a strategy the UN has explicitly labelled "a form of terror."

This crisis is a central strategic objective, especially as the cold season approaches. However, Ukrainians are mostly mentally and physically prepared, as this is not the first winter of trials. Similar energy campaigns in 2022-2023 that attempted to ‘force Ukrainians to surrender’ failed. However, Russia is not giving up this year either. The strategy is already clear to everyone: to sow panic and despair within Ukraine and, possibly, to provoke a new wave of refugees to Europe, where the public in some key countries is already changing its attitude towards newcomers for the worse.

The Anatomy of a Strategy: From Grid Strikes to Generation Kills

The current 2025 campaign is the culmination of a three-phase strategic evolution, shifting from temporary disruption to permanent destruction.

Phase 1 (Winter 2022-2023): The "Freeze" Campaign. The first systematic energy campaign, which began on October 10, 2022, primarily targeted Ukraine's transmission and distribution grid. Over that winter, Russia launched more than 1,000 missiles and drones at high-voltage substations and transformers. The goal, as assessed by the International Energy Agency, was to "destabilise the electricity system" by disconnecting power plants from consumers, causing rolling blackouts. Ultimately, this phase failed due to a relatively mild winter and the rapid efforts of Ukrainian repair crews.

Phase 2 (Spring-Summer 2024): The Shift to "Generation Kills" Learning from its failure, Russia initiated a devastating pivot in the spring of 2024, shifting its focus from transmission (the grid) to generation (the power plants) in attacks that intensified starting in March 2024. It unleashed massive, coordinated strikes specifically targeting Ukraine's thermal (TPPs) and hydroelectric (HPPs) power plants. The attack on March 22, 2024, saw eight Russian missiles strike Ukraine's largest hydroelectric plant, causing "significant damage."

At that time, Ukraine lost another 9 gigawatts of generating capacity. DTEK, Ukraine's largest private energy company, reported in June 2024 that Russian attacks had destroyed 90% of its generating capacity.

Phase 3 (Autumn 2025): The "Everything" War. The current campaign is a synthesis of all previous phases, augmented by a new, critical target: natural gas infrastructure. This "novel focus" is designed to deprive Ukraine of the ability to heat its homes. On October 3, 2025, Russia fired 35 missiles and 60 drones at gas facilities in the Kharkiv and Poltava oblasts. These attacks have destroyed around 60% of Ukraine's natural gas production capacity.

Russia is now attacking all components simultaneously: generation, transmission, and the fuel supply needed to run them, attempting to guarantee a total, irreversible collapse.

A Duel of Innovation: Russia's Missiles vs. Ukraine's Shield

The 2025 campaign is defined by a high-stakes technological duel between Russia's adapted missile tactics and Ukraine's Western-supplied air defences.

Analysis of the autumn 2025 attacks shows Russia has "honed" a cost-effective, two-pronged system.

1. Shahed Drones (The Swarm): Cheap, long-range drones are used in massive swarms to overwhelm defences and destroy "soft" but critical grid components like power substations and transformers.

2. Ballistic Missiles (The Hammer): Expensive, high-speed ballistic missiles (like the Iskander) and hypersonic-capable missiles (like the Kinzhal) are now reserved for the high-value, hardened targets: the concrete-and-steel generation plants that drones cannot kill.

In October 2025, citing Ukrainian and Western officials, it was revealed that Russia has modified its Iskander-M and Kinzhal missiles. These missiles now fly a "quasi-ballistic" path, following a predictable trajectory before suddenly changing course and diving steeply in their terminal phase.

These manoeuvres are specifically designed to evade the interception algorithms of the US-made Patriot system. The interception rate for Russian ballistic missiles—the Patriot's primary function—was 37% in July, but fell to 6% in September. This tactical innovation directly explains why the 2025 energy campaign is proving so destructive.

The Reckoning: Quantifying the Collapse

The UN's designation of the campaign as "a form of terror" is not hyperbole. In hospitals, power cuts interrupt surgeries, force surgeons to operate by headlamp, and disable life-saving equipment. In February 2024, authorities in Dnipro were forced to evacuate a hospital and close schools after an attack crippled the heating system. For civilians in high-rises, homes become "deathtraps" with no water, heat, or way to cook.

The financial cost is astronomical. An updated joint assessment by the World Bank, the EU, and the UN estimates the total cost of national reconstruction at $524 billion over the next decade. The Kyiv School of Economics (KSE) estimates that direct damage to the energy sector alone has reached $14.6 billion. This figure accounts for the destruction of significant assets like the Kakhovka and Dnipro Hydroelectric Power Plants and the Trypillia and Zmiiv Thermal Power Plants.

The most critical metric, however, is the "generation gap." The devastating spring 2024 campaign alone permanently knocked out 9 GW of capacity. With DTEK having lost 90% of its capacity and the new autumn 2025 campaign expected to destroy an estimated 60% of natural gas production, Ukraine is entering winter with a structural power deficit of 6 GW.

The Peril of "Nuclear Terrorism"

Beyond the conventional crisis, Russia's energy war is deliberately creating a nuclear-level risk. This threat extends far beyond the occupied Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant. Russia is now waging a calculated campaign against the lifelines of Ukraine's other operating nuclear plants: Rivne, South Ukraine, and Khmelnytsky.

The attacks do not target the reactors, but the high-voltage substations that provide the essential off-site external power needed to run critical cooling systems. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has repeatedly warned that these attacks are compromising nuclear safety. Director General Rafael Grossi stated that "Attacks on Ukraine's power grid represent an ever-present danger to nuclear safety". Ukraine's Foreign Ministry has been more blunt, labeling these "targeted strikes on such substations" as having the "hallmarks of nuclear terrorism" and a "grave violation of international humanitarian law.» But at the same time, every two years, the IAEA accepts new employees from Rosatom, justifying Russia's genocidal war against Ukraine and enhancing the authority of the Russian atomic agency, which can speculate on this and pass confidential information from the heart of Europe directly to Putin's office. 

The Resilience Front: A Race Against Time

In the face of this destruction, Ukraine is waging a desperate, multi-front war for survival. The first line of defence is the 24/7 work of Ukrainian energy crews. One DTEK worker emphasised: "This is our front... our task is to ensure that our Ukraine has electricity." This work is hazardous; in one incident, a DTEK repair team was itself targeted by a drone while working to restore power.

This resilience depends on an international lifeline of aid, including generators, transformers, and circuit breakers from the EU, the United States, and other partners. This aid, however, is a stopgap. Russia can destroy infrastructure far faster than it can be repaired.

The only viable long-term strategy is to build a decentralised, resilient energy system. This means shifting from a few large, vulnerable targets to thousands of small, distributed ones. This transition is already underway, leveraging solar panels, battery storage systems, and small modular gas turbines.

Russia is waging a total war of attrition. It is a war fought not only for territory but against the foundations of a modern state: its economy, its civilian morale, and the political cohesion of its European allies.

The 2025 annihilation campaign is its most dangerous phase yet. It is defined by new tactical sophistication—using modified, evasive ballistic missiles—and a new strategic depth, adding the destruction of natural gas to its "generation kill" campaign. Its goal is to physically "de-develop" Ukraine and weaponise the resulting human suffering to destabilise Europe. Ukraine is now locked in a desperate, two-front race: a technical race to acquire the air defences it needs, and a strategic race to fund a decentralised, modern grid before its infrastructure—and its alliances—fracture altogether.

So, here’s the bottom line. What we are witnessing in Ukraine is not a localised conflict. It is a laboratory. Russia is methodically field-testing a 21st-century annihilation strategy: can a modern European nation be systematically de-developed, terrorised, and broken from the air? The primary objective is no longer just to conquer Kyiv, but to export the resulting chaos and break the political will of its European allies.   

This is not a theoretical threat. This is "Phase Zero". While the world watches the skies over Kyiv, Russia is already conducting an escalating campaign of sabotage and subversion against targets inside Europe.  

The lag between Ukraine’s desperate requests for air defence and the West's piecemeal delivery is Russia’s greatest asset. This isn't just a plea for humanitarian aid; it's a cold, strategic calculation. If we allow Ukraine’s shield to fail, we are naive to believe the war on infrastructure will stop at its borders. The fight over Ukraine’s power grid is the frontline of a war already at Europe's doorstep. The time to provide overwhelming, decisive, and on-time support is not next month. It was yesterday. The next-best time is now.