Russia’s winter energy campaign failed. Now it is coming for Ukraine’s water. Ukraine is spending 278 billion hryvnias ($6.4 billion) to make sure that doesn’t work either—with 22.1 billion hryvnias ($509 million) already released to harden 576 priority objects, out of more than 3,000 that require protection nationwide, according to Deputy Prime Minister Oleksii Kuleba.
Prime Minister Yuliia Svyrydenko announced the first-phase allocation on 9 April at the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities in Uzhhorod, with 26 water supply and sewage resilience projects underway across 10 communities.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned that Russia was already preparing new strikes specifically targeting logistics and water supply.
Russia’s winter 2025–2026 energy campaign—more than 257 strikes on Ukrainian power infrastructure by February alone—failed to achieve a single strategic objective, and ISW assessed in March that Moscow would likely apply the same tactics to water systems, which share the Soviet-era single-point design that made power infrastructure so easy to cripple.
All 15 of Ukraine’s thermal power plants were damaged or destroyed in the campaign; the grid survived on imports and emergency repairs, with no buffer for next winter. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned days earlier that Russia was already preparing new strikes specifically targeting logistics and water supply. For once, Ukraine is hardening a target before the strikes begin.
Water gets the energy treatment
Of the total plan, 12.7 billion hryvnias ($292 million) is earmarked for the 26 water projects, Svyrydenko said. The core work is network looping—reconfiguring linear water mains into rings that reroute supply around a damaged node—alongside backup equipment at critical junctions and resilience upgrades at key pumping stations.
Linear water mains fail when a node is struck. Cut one pumping station, and everything downstream loses pressure. Looped networks reroute. Hit one junction, supply finds another path. Ukraine learned, across one very long winter, that this redundancy must underpin any infrastructure expected to survive precision strikes.
“Next winter, people must have light, heat, and water even in the most difficult conditions.”
When Russia destroyed combined heat-and-power plants serving Kyiv’s left bank in January and February, entire districts lost heat and electricity simultaneously, for weeks, as temperatures fell to -20°C across the country—one of the coldest winters Ukraine has recorded in recent years.
The looping concept is not new. What changed is that Ukraine now knows what it costs when critical nodes have no backup route.
“Physical protection is already working: protected energy facilities can withstand up to 40 hits.”
“Next winter, people must have light, heat, and water even in the most difficult conditions,” the prime minister declared.
Hardening energy infrastructure has already proved its worth. “Physical protection is already working: protected energy facilities can withstand up to 40 hits and remain operational,” Kuleba told Ukrainska Pravda.
Every region in the crosshairs
Svyrydenko told regional officials that distance from the front line is no longer a form of protection. All regions are in the risk zone, she said, and preparation must proceed at maximum pace everywhere. Local authorities must submit co-financing plans from their own budgets rather than wait for central funding.
“Everything that can be done now—we do now.”
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Energy Minister Denys Shmyhal, who chairs the Energy Emergency Headquarters, restructured the body around six tracks: power station repairs, physical protection for energy facilities, restoring Kyiv’s damaged energy hub, attracting humanitarian aid for distributed energy, expanding cogeneration capacity, and monitoring implementation.
Under the baseline scenario, gas reserves are to reach 14.6 billion cubic meters before the heating season begins, according to the same Cabinet of Ministers plan.
“Everything that can be done now—we do now,” Svyrydenko said.
Preparing without a safety net
Hungary is currently blocking the €90 billion ($104 billion) EU loan package for Ukraine in 2026–2027, with IMF estimates suggesting state finances could come under acute pressure as early as May, RFE/RL reported in April.
The full resilience plan requires €5.4 billion ($6.2 billion) in international investment covering protection, power generation, water supply, and heating.
The next €4 billion ($4.6 billion) tranche of the EU’s Ukraine Facility is contingent on Kyiv passing reform legislation—several laws directly tied to energy sector liberalization.
The full resilience plan requires €5.4 billion ($6.2 billion) in international investment covering protection, power generation, water supply, and heating, Kuleba told the EU on 23 March. The 278 billion hryvnias total depends on substantial international co-funding.
The 26 water projects are scheduled for completion before the next heating season begins. The first contracts are being negotiated now.
