How Russia’s winter attack campaign threatens to fracture Ukraine’s power grid

In the fall, as Russia intensified strikes on Ukraine’s energy system, experts warned that the coming winter would be difficult — but few expected a critical breakdown. By early January, however, it had become clear that the full-scale war’s fourth winter would prove the hardest yet, as repeated blackouts and heating outages have stretched on for days in subfreezing temperatures. iStories examined how Russia has changed its tactics for striking Ukraine’s energy infrastructure and what that could mean for the country’s power grid. Meduza shares an abridged translation.

Since last summer, Russia has expanded its campaign against Ukraine’s energy system, striking not only major power plants and large facilities but also smaller regional substations — especially in border areas and regions close to the front line.

The aim of this strategy, Ukrainska Pravda wrote in October, is to split the country’s power grid in two. Before the full-scale invasion, areas east of the Dnipro River generated more electricity than they consumed. But after Russia occupied the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant and destroyed thermal power stations in the east, these regions have become dependent on supplies from western Ukraine. Now, Russia’s attacks are gradually paralyzing the transfer of electricity from west to east. In the worst-case scenario, a fractured grid could trigger large-scale blackouts like the one in November 2022.

So far this winter, a nationwide blackout has been avoided. But large cities and entire regions are still periodically left without electricity, heating, or water. After strikes on January 7, blackouts hit Dnipro and Zaporizhzhia; on the night of January 10, the Zaporizhzhia region lost power. On the night of January 8, following a massive missile and drone strike, most of Kyiv lost power. More than 400,000 households were left without electricity, and over 6,000 apartment buildings — nearly half of the city’s total — lost heating.

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These large-scale outages are linked in part to the destruction of substations that transmit electricity from western Ukraine to the east. “The problem right now isn’t how much electricity we produce — it’s how we move it,” explained Ukrainian economist Borys Kushniruk. Electricity first passes through a substation that increases voltage for long-distance transmission, then travels along power lines to consumer regions, where other substations reduce it to household voltage.

Russian strikes have targeted both types of substations. In early January, the town of Slavutych, near Chernihiv, was left without power for two days. Slavutych is a major hub in Ukraine’s energy system, through which a significant share of electricity flows, said energy expert Sviatoslav Pavliuk. Attacks on substations in Slavutych, as well as near Zaporizhzhia and Dnipro, disrupt the transfer of electricity from producers to consumers, he added.

“If substations are destroyed or damaged, there’s nothing you can do,” First Deputy Energy Minister Artem Nekrasov explained. “You can’t carry electricity in buckets.”

A similar situation unfolded in Kyiv, where separate substations serve the two banks of the Dnipro River. “If a substation is damaged or destroyed, there’s simply no physical way to receive electricity and deliver it to consumers,” said Kushniruk. These are not minor facilities, according to Oleksiy Kucherenko, deputy head of the Verkhovna Rada’s energy committee, but 330-kilovolt hub stations critical to the entire system. “This isn’t just a matter of running a power line from one side of the river to the other,” he said.

‘The real question is air defense’

This winter is the coldest Ukraine has seen since the full-scale invasion began. In Kyiv, daytime temperatures hover around minus 10 to 12 Celsius (14 to 10 Fahrenheit), dropping to minus 15 to 17 at night (5 to 1 Fahrenheit). Most of the country is experiencing subfreezing temperatures — even the southern city of Odesa.

Every one-degree drop in the average daily temperature increases electricity consumption in Ukraine by about 200 megawatt-hours, said Stanislav Ihnatiev of the Ukrainian Institute for the Future. At the current average temperature of zero degrees Celsius (32 Fahrenheit), the electricity production shortfall is roughly four gigawatt-hours. Most of that is covered by imports and private generation; the rest — around 1.5 gigawatts — is managed through scheduled outages. If temperatures fall to minus 20 Celsius (-4 Fahrenheit), the deficit could double to eight gigawatt-hours, Ihnatiev estimates.

Cold snaps and snowstorms don’t just drive up demand — they also make repairs harder. Trees brought down by snow or wind snap power lines, while repair crews struggle to reach damaged sites through heavy snow. “They deliberately waited for freezing weather to make things worse for our people,” President Volodymyr Zelensky said on January 11. “This is deliberate, cynical Russian terror specifically against civilians.”

The most critical pieces of equipment at the substations targeted by Russian strikes are large power transformers. Ukraine had a single plant that produced them, located in Zaporizhzhia, but it’s no longer operating. As a result, transformers now have to be ordered abroad, said Ihnatiev. Manufacturing and delivering them to Ukraine can take up to four months. While it’s often impossible to protect an entire large substation from attacks, transformers themselves can be shielded. Ihnatiev believes that Energoatom, Ukraine’s state nuclear power company, failed in this.

As Ukraine’s industrial base contracted over the course of the war, some energy equipment was placed in storage and later moved to other facilities when needed. “But after four years, we’ve exhausted even that reserve,” said lawmaker Serhii Nahorniak, who sits on the Verkhovna Rada’s energy committee.

Ukrainian officials and experts avoid giving a definitive answer on whether the system could collapse. Much depends, they say, on the intensity of Russian strikes and how effectively Ukraine’s air defenses can intercept them.

“What do you want me to say on air right now — that [the power grid] won’t hold up? I won’t say that,” Kucherenko told the Ukrainian news outlet Telegraf. “It will be tough, but you have to understand that repairs are happening at the same time. […] The real question isn’t the energy system — it’s air defense.”

The heavier the bombardment, the larger the electricity deficit — and the longer the outages will last. In the worst-case scenario, residents of major cities, including Kyiv, could receive electricity for just three to four hours a day, according to Ihnatiev. If temperatures stay above extreme lows, that could stretch to as much as six hours.