Enchanted Circle of the Fifth Winter: Why We Are Losing the Energy Battle with Russia

During the war, the calendar year increasingly feels to Ukrainians like walking in an enchanted circle of illusions carefully constructed by official communication channels. These illusions cover an inconvenient truth: in the fifth year of the full-scale war the state failed to create conditions for the development of decentralized generation, because the political elite are unwilling to give up hands-on control of energy assets from which they have collected rent for decades. So the scenario is the same every year. In spring, as soon as the massive Russian strikes on energy quiet down, we are told about “powerful preparations.” In summer we are encouraged by news of new megawatts that will appear in the power system by the next winter. In September officials report a colossal volume of restoration work and one hundred percent readiness for “the toughest winter in history.” Then we are swung on emotional seesaws around a possible energy truce that Russia will violate anyway. And then reality bursts into that circle: Russian missiles and countless drones strike Ukrainian power plants and networks, and blackout schedules return.

This year reality broke in earlier than usual: Russia carried out its first massive strike on the energy sector already on 30 September. In October it launched about six series of massive attacks, between which drone attacks continued almost without interruption, and the Ukrainian power system stood on the brink of a large-scale failure that energy specialists call a blackout. Kyiv, the central, northern, and eastern regions have been living in a mode of emergency outages almost continuously before the cold arrived and only occasionally returning to planned schedules. The reason is severely damaged objects of the main high-voltage network (Ukrenergo substations 330–750 kV and distribution company substations 110 kV).

The enemy is deliberately destroying the power system’s ability to transmit electricity from the western and southern regions, where large generation (nuclear plants) is mainly located, to the east, where consumption is concentrated. The goal is to split the power system so that the Left Bank is mostly left in the dark while the Right Bank has light or very mild outage schedules.

Kyiv’s energy sector is under particular Russian focus. New generation capacity sufficient to at least partially replace the thermal power plants knocked out last winter never appeared in the capital, so the city is entirely dependent on electricity supplied from the transmission network. Strikes on thermal power plants this autumn deepened that dependence, and attacks on the high-voltage substations around Kyiv, the so‑called Kyiv energy ring, in early November left 80–85% of the capital’s consumers without power simultaneously.

At the same time the Russians are creating an energy deficit in the system by striking generation they have “zeroed in” on over the years of war. Large thermal and hydroelectric plants and district heating facilities in Left Bank cities are under attack. Some of them have not recovered from last year’s shelling, and this winter they will not return to operation.

All of this fully corresponds to three main tactics of Russian terror refined in previous years. The first is the scorched-earth tactic the Russians have used since 2023: its logic is to “cut out” from the power system the cities and regions most dependent on grid-fed power. That happened in previous years with the traditionally energy-deficient Odesa, then with Kharkiv, which plunged into darkness after energy facilities around it were destroyed. All of this proved a terrible rehearsal before the attempt to deprive Kyiv residents of light, heat, and water this year.

The second tactic is the ‘cut like salami’ approach: the Russians destroy key facilities gradually, forcing Ukrainian energy workers to spend time, equipment, and resources on restoration, and then strike again. The third is missile ‘carpet bombing’ of large power plants and sometimes of transmission substations across the country, familiar to Ukrainians since autumn 2022.

Why? Russia’s strategic goals are multi-layered: to black out and freeze the capital and major cities, exhaust Ukrainian resources, collapse the economy, sow panic and despair, intimidate international partners, and divert our attention and resources from the front. All of these serve the global aim of forcing Ukraine to peace on Russian terms, that is, to capitulation.

So the prospects for the winter of 2026–2027 years are increasingly clear: if Russia maintains the intensity of its strikes, the state of the power system will be determined by the weather, because electricity consumption depends on it. Experience from previous wartime heating seasons shows that in a relatively warm winter, with temperatures up to -10 °C, the capacity deficit in the evening hours after massive attacks can reach 4–4,5 GW. If schedules are planned, that conditionally means 2–3 outage queues and 8–12 hours without power per day. If the winter is as cold as last year, when temperatures fell to -20 °C, the deficit could be 7 GW, equal to the winter consumption of a small European country. That would mean about 3–4 queues and more than 12–16 hours without power. The answer to how much new distributed generation Ukraine actually built and how well prepared it is will be given by the winter itself: it will show the power system’s ability to cover peak consumption and reduce the energy deficit after Russian strikes.

To freeze and plunge Ukraine into darkness, Russia mobilizes all its military, technical, and propaganda capabilities. The Russians combine knowledge of our power system with a careful study of the mistakes we made preparing for previous wartime winters so they can strike where it hurts most. This year they significantly expanded their arsenal: they scaled up production of relatively cheap reactive drones and combine them with expensive ballistic weapons, because they know that Ukrainian air defenses do not yet have a full answer to these threats.

Propaganda operates with the same precision. Previously implanted ‘wormholes’ in our public consciousness—like ‘there is no light because the authorities steal it and sell it abroad’—resonate against the lullaby of official communication in the vein of ‘it will be difficult, but we are ready and will cope.’ The myth of light stolen and sold to Europeans is also fueled by the fact that no one explains the main thing to the public: electricity exports to Europe, if they occur in individual hours of the day, are also a consequence of Russian attacks that destroy the ability to transmit electricity inside the country from west to east.

The Russians will always strike our weaknesses, technical and mental: where we miscalculated, analyzed superficially, and did not prepare, hoping they would not notice. After all, the enemy knows well—where it is thin, there it will tear. In the fifth year of the full-scale war, when both Russian strategy and tactics are obvious, the Ukrainian government, it would seem, should not have left them such chances.

Yet Ukraine again repeats the mistakes of preparation for previous heating seasons. At their core is the false assumption that during war it is enough to prepare only for the next winter according to peacetime algorithms and protocols. We still lack a strategic ‘long view’ that would answer how to prepare for heating seasons 3–5 years ahead, taking into account the enemy’s tactics and goals. Analysts at the Ukraine Facility Platform in the report “The Fifth Winter: a Race for Speed” identified three key problems in this year’s preparations.

First: the government again focused on countermeasures to Russian terror that worked several years ago but no longer provide full effect today. The bet was again placed on restoring old large power plants: Minister of Energy Denys Shmyhal in September reported a record 4,8 GW of restored capacity. However, their operation can be stopped by the very first series of massive missile strikes.

Second: resources were invested in shelters at energy facilities that no longer correspond to current military threats. According to the minister, about 200 shelters have been built for high-voltage autotransformers, which are certainly needed. However, the Russians are already bypassing this protection, destroying the rest of the critical equipment of key high‑voltage substations with dozens of drones.

Third: responsibility was shifted to communities that actually lack the capacity to effectively implement resilience plans. Prime Minister Serhiy Koretsky called their implementation unsatisfactory in the fall. Meanwhile the government relied on the power system’s margin of safety and lulled the public with that same communication—‘we face the toughest winter, but we will cope.’

The way out of this trap is obvious. If the enemy systematically knocks out large power plants and makes entire regions hostages to the transmission network, generation must be decentralized and dependence on transmission infrastructure reduced: disperse it among communities and bring it closer to consumers. Hundreds of small facilities (5–10 MW each) in and around communities can at least partially power critical infrastructure during peak consumption hours in winter, and it is much harder to knock out all of them than one large thermal plant or an Ukrenergo substation. Moreover, a small installation can be built or repaired in months, while some large TPP units cannot be returned to operation even in half a year.

That is precisely what the government did not do: it did not create conditions under which businesses and communities would jointly build new decentralized generation.

Why? Because this requires the government and parliament to make a number of systemic decisions that reduce politically motivated hands-on state control over the energy sector.

First — create conditions for private investment in generation. This requires unpopular regulatory decisions that have been postponed for years. The most important of these is to resolve the debt crisis in the energy market, the size of which already exceeds 2 billion euros: stop the accumulation of new debts and force those who set tariffs below cost to cover the difference. While debts grow, an investor will not believe they will be paid and will build generation only for themselves.

Second — fulfill the commitments Ukraine has already taken on as part of European integration: independent corporate governance of state energy companies, an independent sectoral regulator (NKREKP), market coupling with the EU, and a gradual abandonment of hands-on price regulation. These reforms deprive the state of the ability to manually distribute money and market access, and thus to weaken the system in the long term. However, almost a year after the corruption scandal known as ‘Mindichgate,’ investors still do not see the promised changes.

Breaking the enchanted circle is possible only if the government begins to speak honestly with the public about the risks and finally makes decisions it has postponed for years. These decisions are unpopular, which is why they are deferred year after year. Millions of Ukrainians in dark and cold homes pay the price of delay, and with each winter that price grows.

And this winter everything is decided by speed: whether Ukraine can restore and build energy facilities faster than Russia destroys them, and whether it can close vulnerabilities before the enemy finds them. So far Russia is ahead in this struggle: it is applying tactics refined in previous years, while we are still preparing for the last or the coming winter.

However, we have every chance to win. Ukrainian energy workers for the fifth year are restoring power under fire, and their professionalism has saved the country more than once. We know how to adapt quickly and build entire ecosystems, as the defense industry has proven. But the energy sector needs decisions that will allow these capabilities to be realized. If everything again remains limited to the enchanted circle of ‘powerful preparations,’ this winter could be the last that the power system gets through on the remnants of its margin of safety.