«Russia failed in its attempt to seize Ukraine militarily, and now they’re turning to a campaign aimed at making the country uninhabitable,» analyst says.
Since October 10, Russia has been waging an intensified air campaign against Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure. While missile strikes on playgrounds and pedestrian bridges have attracted a disproportionate share of international attention, Russian rockets and Iranian-supplied drones continue to methodically degrade the Ukrainian power grid.
On Tuesday, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced that «Since Oct. 10, 30% of Ukraine’s power stations have been destroyed.» It is a statistic that does not necessarily communicate the full extent of the damage.
«The 30% figure likely means that these facilities are temporarily offline, but it isn’t only power plants which have been hit,» Jayanti explained. «Almost all substations have also been damaged, many of them irreparably. If Ukraine does not get immediate help —monetary aid, shipments of critical equipment, and technical assistance — it could lose the power it needs to maintain its defenses.»
Jayanti shared a list of equipment currently being sought by one Ukrainian energy company in order to replace items taken offline by the recent waves of Russian attacks.
«I don’t know how successful they’ve been thus far in procuring replacements,» she said, «but the fact that the list is so extensive suggests that the damage to date is substantial.»
While speedy repairs and strong requests to cut back on electricity usage have thus far limited the extent and duration of power outages, Russia likely possesses the capacity to increase the intensity of its air campaign.
When analyzing the potential soft spots in the Ukrainian power grid, Mihajlovic emphasized the importance of transformer substations, a subject that Jayanti also stressed. When electricity is produced, transformers placed near the power plant itself are used to scale up voltage for delivery through power lines to industrial centers and residential hubs.
