Photo: Flag, Ukraine, War image from Pixabay by ELG21
This summary is based on Diane Francis’s analysis in her Substack article “Russia’s Achilles’ Heel.”
Russia and Ukraine’s conflict has shifted into an “Energy War.” With the air campaign intensifying and the ground war largely stalled, Kyiv is striking Russia’s power plants, substations, and high-voltage links to exploit Moscow’s weak, poorly interconnected grid and its limited ability to replace damaged turbines—a vulnerability made worse by Western loopholes in sanctions and by countries that continue to buy Russian oil.
Those precision drone and missile attacks have already caused cascading blackouts, even disrupting Moscow and rail links after strikes hundreds of kilometres away. Ukraine’s ties to the European power system give it an “extension cord” that Russia lacks, allowing Kyiv to sustain its own grid while destabilizing its adversary’s.
The result is a dangerous new leverage point. By targeting generation and transmission outside major cities, Ukraine can plunge large Russian regions into cold and darkness this coming winter without directly attacking the Kremlin. This strategy raises the stakes—and the risk of escalation—as both sides turn energy itself into a weapon of war.