The first snow of the year fell in Kyiv on Wednesday, blanketing Ukraine’s capital in a layer of white and raising concerns about a potential Russian attack on the country’s energy infrastructure.
Last October, Russia began relentless waves of attacks on critical infrastructure that lasted for months and left millions of people without heating, electricity or water for parts of the winter.
This year, there have been only sporadic such attacks so far, but many fear that Moscow is merely waiting for the onset of sub-zero temperatures, in order to cause maximum disruption and distress.
“It has been a warm autumn and Russia postponed these attacks, but they will come for sure. We are preparing,” said Oleksiy Danilov, the secretary of Ukraine’s national security council, in an interview in Kyiv.
Danilov said he had recently returned from an unpublicised visit to London, where he met various security and military officials including Sir Tim Barrow, the UK’s national security adviser, and Adm Sir Tony Radakin, the chief of the defence staff. Although he did not go into detail about the discussions he had in London, Danilov said strategies for protecting Ukraine from winter infrastructure attacks had been one of the key topics.
“Our friends, including the ones from Great Britain, help us to solve these extremely difficult issues,” he said.
Also on Wednesday, Vladimir Putin used a virtual meeting of the G20 group of leading economies to claim he was looking for a way to end the war, in an unusual change of tone for the Russian leader.
“Of course, we should think about how to stop this tragedy,” said the Russian president. “By the way, Russia has never refused peace talks with Ukraine.”
In fact, Russia has shown little willingness to negotiate on any terms other than the surrender of Ukraine, and Putin’s remarks are unlikely to signal a chance of policy. Moscow’s forces continue to attack Ukrainian cities on a daily basis with drones and missiles, in addition to the fighting on the frontlines.
On Tuesday, British defence intelligence speculated in its daily briefing on the war in Ukraine that Moscow has been stockpiling missiles in preparation for a major attack.
“Russia has now refrained from launching its premier air-launched cruise missiles from its heavy bomber fleet for nearly two months, likely allowing it to build up a substantial stock of these weapons,” the report read. “Russia is highly likely to use these missiles if it repeats last year’s attempts to destroy Ukraine’s critical national infrastructure,” it continued.
Between last October and January, it was estimated that about 40% of Ukraine’s energy infrastructure had been damaged. Much of the country was left without power for weeks on end and all households were asked to ration their electricity consumption.
The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said in October that if Russia pursued the same tactics this year, Ukraine would respond in kind. Kyiv’s forces have pulled off a series of strikes in occupied Crimea and inside Russia, often using drones.
“We are preparing for terrorist attacks on our energy infrastructure … This year we will not only defend ourselves, but also respond,” Zelenskiy said.
There have already been sporadic Russian attacks on infrastructure this year, but nothing on the scale of last winter’s strikes. Over the weekend, drones hit various facilities causing temporary power outages in more than 400 settlements on Saturday, officials said. Ukrainian air defence shot down many drones, limiting the damage, they added.
“Your accuracy, guys, is literally life for Ukraine,” Zelenskiy said in his nightly video address, thanking the air defence forces. However, he added: “The closer we are to winter, the more Russians will try to make the strikes more powerful.”
Across the country, businesses have been told to prepare generators to use in the event of an electricity blackout and make other contingency plans. “We do not have a right to relax,” Volodymyr Kudrytskiy, head of the power grid operator Ukrenergo, told Ukrainian TV.
Ukraine is confident that its air defences are significantly better prepared than they were last year, although they are still far from adequate to cover the whole country.
“You should keep in mind that we are preparing, but the Russians are also not just sitting idly by. They are also learning and getting help from their allies in Iran and North Korea,” said Danilov.
