As winter looms, Russia is seeking to sow panic, military analysts say

The idea of freezing Ukrainians into submission is not new. The Kremlin has for years studied Ukraine’s energy networks and sought to manipulate them

Russian missiles on Monday targeted electrical power plants, transmission lines and waterworks across Ukraine in a strategy now being openly discussed in Russia — retaliating for battlefield losses by attempting to cripple Ukraine’s critical infrastructure.

Plunging cities into darkness and complicating people’s lives with water outages are intended to sow panic behind the Ukrainian lines as winter looms, even though it may have little immediate effect on the fighting, Ukrainian officials and military analysts say. Lights flickered off in multiple cities on Monday, as local authorities resorted to rolling blackouts to avoid overloading backup electrical lines.

The idea of freezing Ukrainians into submission is not new. The Kremlin has for years studied Ukraine’s energy networks and sought to manipulate prices or cut natural gas deliveries to influence politics in the country, an approach it is now pursuing with military force. Twice in past years, Russia cut natural gas supplies to Ukraine in midwinter.

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By Monday afternoon, bombardments had hit 11 infrastructure sites throughout the country, Prime Minister Denys Shmygal said in a post on Facebook. Ukraine should brace for blackouts and disruptions in water supplies, he said.

Regional officials have been bracing for extensive repair jobs at power plants, hiring extra linemen and setting up communal spaces heated by wood or coal stoves as a fallback option if Russia succeeds in knocking out heat and power in the cold winter months.

“As Russians lose, they fire rockets at civilian infrastructure to create panic in the rear and damage our army,” said Olexander Vilkul, military governor of Kryvyi Rih, a central Ukrainian city that was among the first targets of the Russian strategy of targeting infrastructure last month. In that flurry of strikes, missiles hit the city’s waterworks, water pipes and a slues on a dam, flooding low-lying neighborhoods.

The strikes Monday expanded the strategy. By Monday afternoon, four regions — Lviv, Poltava, Sumy and Kharkiv — were without electricity, officials said. In Kharkiv, electrically powered trolley buses and trams glided to a stop. Electric trains from Kyiv headed to the country’s west didn’t leave the station.

Experts on Ukraine’s electrical grid and municipal heating have said it is a hard target to fully disable, making it unlikely a demoralizing nationwide freeze awaits Ukraine over the winter.

In the Soviet era, the country was a center of hydroelectric and nuclear power generation and today has about twice as much generating capacity as domestic demand. Ukraine exports electricity to the European Union but suspended exports Monday after the strikes, according to the country’s energy ministry.

Missile strikes can cause temporary or regional blackouts but are unlikely to plunge the entire country into darkness, Ivan Plachkov, a former energy minister, said in an interview. He added that the centralized heating systems that circulate hot water to neighborhoods often have built-in backup systems.

City authorities throughout Ukraine have also been preparing warm spaces heated by wood or coal stoves, where residents can move if their apartments lose heat.

“Ukraine is prepared as much as possible for this scenario,” Plachkov said. “People are preparing for winter. After these strikes, the fight will go on.”