Russian President Vladimir Putin has moved from a strategy of conquering Ukraine to a strategy of its destruction. This year he has lost hundreds of thousands of soldiers in exchange for less than 1% of Ukraine’s territory, The Economist reports.
Russia is conducting thousands of air strikes on the power grid, central heating, and gas infrastructure as winter approaches.
The goal is to render parts of the country’s east uninhabitable, crash the industry, and provoke mass emigration and panic.
Russia is inventing new weapons to destroy Ukraine
The Kremlin is now operating even more clinically and cynically than before. Russian capabilities and tactics are evolving faster than Ukraine can improve its air defenses — both missile interceptions and electronic warfare measures around sensitive sites. It appears this winter will be a test of endurance like no other.
The Kremlin is concentrating on specific regions, striking in waves and using new variants of cheap Shahed drones.
The drones are also attacking differently, approaching from near‑vertical trajectories and flying above the effective range of machine guns, almost like missiles.
Over the past three weeks, Russia has hit several thermal power plants and possibly shut down half of Ukraine’s gas production, a key part of balancing capacity.
Beyond the cost of damaged infrastructure, recent attacks unexpectedly forced Ukraine to spend a staggering $1.9 billion on imported gas.
Cutting the country apart with an energy blitzkrieg
Outside the capital, Russia has focused on the border regions of Sumy, Chernihiv, and Kharkiv. The apparent aim is to slice Ukraine in two: isolate the industrial east, where consumption has always been higher, from the energy production in the west, and to weaken transmission lines so that eventual west‑to‑east power flows are paralyzed.
“They want to turn the power off on the eastern bank first, not the whole country,” a government source says.
The report says that Putin, smelling blood, is unlikely to stop. In previous years, his attacks only strengthened Ukrainian resolve. This time, they may be more effective.
