A sweeping wave of Russian missile and drone strikes since October has been deliberately pushing Ukraine’s power system toward a critical threshold, writes The Washington Post, citing officials and analysts familiar with the situation. The central risk stems from attacks on the electricity transmission network that carries power from the western regions—where most generation is now concentrated—to the east of the country. According to several sources cited by the newspaper, the destruction of these lines could effectively split the energy system in two. “If we are not at the brink of a complete blackout in the east of the country, then we are very close to it,” a senior European diplomat told The Washington Post. Another source familiar with the state of the sector put it even more starkly: “We are now one step away from a complete blackout in Kyiv.”
As The Washington Post notes, pressure on the power system has intensified sharply with the onset of winter. In November, Russia launched around 5 000 drones and missiles—more than twice as many as earlier in the year. The attacks have become more systematic and more targeted, striking substations, transmission lines, generating capacity, and gas infrastructure, often with a concentrated focus on a single region. The rising frequency of strikes shortens the time available for repairs while simultaneously straining air-defense capabilities, making the protection of surviving elements of the grid increasingly difficult. Even a brief improvement in Kyiv in early December proved fragile—a major nighttime attack on December 5 once again inflicted critical damage on the network and sharply worsened the capital’s power supply, The Washington Post writes.
An additional risk, according to European diplomats, lies in the implementation of an “energy islands” strategy, under which individual regions could be completely cut off both from generation and from electricity supplies through the existing transmission system. This applies above all to frontline and border regions, where strikes on energy facilities occur almost daily. From October through December, Russia carried out eight large-scale combined attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, while assaults on individual facilities or regions continue on a постоянной basis, The Washington Post notes.
Despite this, Ukraine’s power system is still holding together thanks to emergency engineering measures and continuous repair work. Yet, as sources cited by The Washington Post acknowledge, its margin of safety is extremely thin. A critical factor is access to equipment for urgent replacement—above all transformers and gas compressors—and the ability to carry out repairs without repeat strikes on the same facilities. Even if restoration efforts succeed, experts quoted by the newspaper say electricity supply will remain unstable throughout the winter and likely into the spring, while the country continues to hover in close proximity to a large-scale failure of the energy system.