Winter 2025-2026 Becomes the Toughest Test for Ukraine’s Energy System
Russia has been attacking Ukraine’s energy sector since 2022, but the winter of 2025-2026 became the most difficult period of the full-scale war. Outages lasted for hours and days, and some buildings were left without electricity, water and heating. Frosts down to -25, a shortage of repair crews and a lack of air defense missiles turned every strike into a multiplier of consequences.
Time for Action analyzed how Russia changed its strike logic, why the capital found itself in the worst situation, what role partners play and where the line runs between recovery and systemic exhaustion.
The first massive strike on critical infrastructure took place on October 10, 2022. Russia failed to completely de-energize the country, but the damage quickly made rolling blackouts a new reality. On November 23, 2022, the first blackout occurred: infrastructure damage led to the de-energizing of hydro and thermal power plants, as well as the shutdown of three nuclear power plants. During the first year of the full-scale war, energy facilities were attacked 255 times, with most strikes occurring during the heating season.
In 2024, Russia changed its approach. Instead of concentrating only on winter, strikes shifted to spring. Within weeks, major generating facilities were destroyed or critically damaged, creating a capacity deficit already in summer. This signaled a new objective: not only to cause short-term blackouts, but to stretch the crisis over time, exhaust the system through continuous repairs and capacity shortages, and complicate preparation for the next season. The winter of 2025-2026 confirmed the effectiveness of this strategy. In a country where energy workers operate under constant emergency conditions, even targeted strikes produce large-scale consequences. Distribution system operators in several regions restored electricity to more than 5.8 million households since the beginning of the year, and for some consumers supply had to be restored more than once. In frontline regions there are facilities that have been repaired dozens of times, and some nearly 100 times after enemy damage. This is not only repair statistics, but a reflection of how war forces the energy sector into permanent recovery without the ability to build resilience.
The situation in Kyiv and its surroundings became especially acute. Beginning January 9, 2026, a series of massive strikes on critical facilities triggered emergency outages across multiple cities, sometimes lasting more than a day. On February 7, a large-scale attack targeted western Ukraine’s energy facilities, striking major thermal plants and leading to more frequent outages in western regions. This demonstrated that Russia operates across multiple directions, creating deficits sequentially across different parts of the country.
Centralized heating became the most painful issue in the capital. In some buildings heat could not be restored due to damage to thermal power plants or failures in internal systems. Residents described apartments as uninhabitable, with indoor temperatures dropping to +2. Estimates suggested that more than a thousand buildings might not regain heating before the end of the season due to severe damage to a key thermal plant. As of February 18, 450 apartment buildings in one district of Kyiv remained without centralized heating. In these conditions, electricity outages were softened, limited to peak hours, in order to reduce additional strain on life-support systems. The heating crisis exposed another weakness: insufficient capacity and management resources within housing maintenance companies. In many cases, restoring heating depended not only on city-level infrastructure but on whether residents were able to coordinate and assist in restarting internal systems.
“Unfortunately, management companies lack resources, personnel and sometimes professionalism. In some cases, residents will have to unite by entrances or buildings and assist the management company.”
Not all energy problems stem from strikes. On January 31, 2026, a blackout occurred due to a technological accident. Railway services and metro systems temporarily stopped in certain cities, and outages partially affected neighboring countries. Speculation about a cyberattack circulated, but officials attributed the failure to network overload caused by extreme cold. This episode showed that system wear and peak consumption can trigger crisis scenarios even without direct hits, and that information discipline is part of overall resilience.
Forecasting outages in 2026 remains difficult because intensity of attacks and air defense performance are decisive. Energy companies emphasize that only air defense can protect facilities from direct hits. Russia targets generation and major transmission nodes to create production deficits and limit electricity delivery to substations. Therefore, even with intact distribution networks, rolling blackouts are necessary to distribute limited supply. Summer also carries risks. Heat increases consumption due to air conditioning and industrial cooling needs, placing additional strain on a system already facing generation deficits. Scheduled nuclear plant maintenance continues despite the war. Kyiv remains particularly vulnerable because its internal generation has been largely destroyed. A return to predictable schedules in the capital depends not on calendar dates but on improvement in network balance. International partners play a structural role. Assistance includes repair equipment, support for gas infrastructure after major strikes on production facilities, and hundreds of shipments of energy equipment. Solar power installations have been deployed at healthcare facilities to preserve energy independence during attacks.
Kyiv receives targeted support: generators, cogeneration units and materials for heating continuity. At the beginning of 2026, 849 generators with a combined capacity of 50.57 MW were mobilized for the capital. Mobile modular boiler units with a capacity of 1,800 kW each strengthen emergency heating resilience. Public discussions often look for simple examples to replicate. Zhytomyr is frequently cited as experiencing fewer outages. However, experts stress that the decisive factor is scale of consumption. Zhytomyr’s peak consumption is 200-250 MW, while Kyiv’s reaches about 2 GW. Even distributed generation in Zhytomyr covers only around 10% of demand. No Ukrainian city can guarantee full energy independence, even for critical infrastructure.
Recovery estimates highlight the magnitude of the task. By the next heating season, 200-250 MW of additional capacity could be installed with approximately 300-320 million euros in financing. In the near future, the system may require around 9.5 GW of new generation from biofuel plants, gas generation, storage installations and renewable sources. Construction costs are estimated at more than 8 billion euros. Full restoration to pre-war conditions may take around five years, while more stable electricity supply for households could take two to three years. The ten-year modernization and recovery cost is estimated at $90.6 billion, with the largest share directed toward generation. Corruption in reconstruction remains an additional risk. Investigations into embezzlement in energy restoration and state energy companies undermine trust and reduce the efficiency of every invested euro or dollar. Under wartime conditions, this becomes not only an economic issue but a national security concern.
The near-term outlook remains a balance between repairs, deficit management and air defense. A positive scenario for the next year includes full heating in buildings and electricity supply with limitations of four to eight hours. A negative scenario envisions systems guaranteeing only 10-12 degrees indoors and outages lasting 14-16 hours. Ukraine’s energy sector now operates not as a stable infrastructure but as a system proving its capacity to recover every day. The boundary between endurance and breakdown depends on three factors: effectiveness of air defense, speed of deploying additional generation and quality of governance, including strict control over reconstruction funds. These will determine what the next winter looks like.
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