“Intelligence recalled that the Russian Federation intends to leave Ukrainian civilians without electricity and heating”, — write: www.radiosvoboda.org
“In order to force Ukraine to sign unacceptable capitulation demands to end the war, the aggressor state Russia is considering the option of attacking strategic objects of the energy system of our country – we are talking about electricity transmission substations that ensure the operation of Ukrainian nuclear power plants,” the intelligence said.
In addition, the GUR emphasized that within the scope of the company’s pressure, the Russian Federation also plans to intensify the intimidation of European countries and the West in general. The purpose of these measures is to “restrain support to Ukraine, in particular, our country’s ability to repel Russian attacks on critical infrastructure facilities.”
Intelligence recalled that the Russian Federation intends to leave Ukrainian civilians without electricity and heating.
“By destroying or disabling the specified substations, Moscow seeks to disconnect the NPP power units from the unified energy system of Ukraine, so that Ukrainian civilians will be completely without light and heat,” explained the HUR.
The intelligence agency informed that as of mid-January 2025, Russia had conducted reconnaissance of ten relevant critical infrastructure facilities in nine regions of Ukraine.
“The Kremlin’s intentions to attack substations in order to destroy the power generation at Ukraine’s nuclear power plants in such a hybrid way once again testify to the genocidal nature of Russia’s war against Ukraine,” the Main Intelligence Directorate summarized.
On January 16, the president stated that the need for electricity consumption in Ukraine these days reaches 18 GW, internal capabilities allow providing only 11 GW. “It was like that yesterday, but in every case something is restored. I won’t say exactly where it is being restored, because as soon as someone says something about it, or somewhere something appears in social networks, telegrams, then they hit again and again,” he said during a press conference in Kyiv with his Czech colleague Petr Pavel.
Since the beginning of the full-scale invasion in February 2022, Russia has been striking Ukraine’s energy infrastructure. In February of last year, the Ministry of Energy stated that in three years Russia occupied 18 GW of generation, including HPP, TPP and Europe’s largest nuclear power plant – Zaporizhzhya NPP.
Since February 2022, Russia has destroyed more than half of its electricity production, Ukraine’s generation has fallen from 55 to below 20 GW – such data was published by the Financial Times newspaper in June 2024.
According to the Ministry of Energy, as of December 12, since the beginning of 2025, the Russian military has attacked the energy infrastructure of Ukraine 4,500 times, and with the beginning of autumn, these attacks have intensified.
After the last massive attacks by the Russian Federation, the energy system of Ukraine is under a state of emergency, the most difficult situation is in Kyiv and the Kyiv region. After the Russian strike on January 9, emergency shutdowns continue. Kyiv Mayor Vitaliy Klitschko said that this Russian attack was the most painful for the city’s critical infrastructure. He emphasized that the situation is the most difficult in four years.