On the night of 30 October, Russia launched 653 drones and 52 missiles at Ukraine in a single coordinated assault. The primary target wasn’t military infrastructure—it was the power grid. As winter approaches, Moscow systematically dismantles the energy network that Ukraine has spent three years integrating with Europe.

The past that doesn’t want to let go

For Ukraine, it’s the third winter of a calculated campaign to weaponize darkness and cold. Not only that: the energy infrastructure Russia is targeting isn’t just keeping Ukrainian lights on. It’s the same grid now linked to substations in Romania and distribution networks in Poland, and through that to the whole ENTSO-E system that connects all of Europe.

But to Ukraine, attacks on energy infrastructure were no surprise—they were inevitable. In this country, Soviet legacy surrounds: from brutalist facades to statues of Communist heroes, reminders of the country’s recent past as part of the Empire are inescapable.

When the Iron Curtain fell across Europe, the Warsaw Pact countries were tied into a single energy grid controlled centrally by Moscow. Across the Soviet Bloc, resistance to the state was repeatedly met with energy blockades and economic hardship. The Kremlin said it best in an internal memo: “He who controls energy controls obedience.”

With the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, those legacy systems of energy interdependence did not disappear but evolved into new agreements and partnerships. After all, Russia still controlled vast oil and liquid natural gas deposits, had decades of expertise, and built a vast functioning shipment network feeding into Eastern Europe. Even as post-Soviet states scrambled to gain energy and strategic independence, they remained linked to Moscow through sheer inertia.

Against the inertia

Fighting against that inertia is ENTSO-E, the coordinating body for Europe’s energy grid. They are responsible for linking Ukraine to the Continent’s energy resources and have enabled countries across the region to decouple from the Kremlin.

The ENTSO-E performed an emergency integration with Ukrenergo, Ukraine’s energy utility, and granted emergency import rights to meet critical needs. As other countries along the Russian European border watched Moscow’s military struggles, they were emboldened to build their own energy projects connecting to the European grid. However, while Soviet-era legacy systems were hardened and secure, each new project gave Russia a fresh target.

Visible pattern

In September 2023, debris from Russian drone attacks was found not near Romanian government buildings, but near power substations along the Romanian side of the Danube River. Those substations were supplied, in part, by recent natural gas partnerships with Greece and Serbia. These incursions represented some of the first drone flyovers outside the Ukrainian battlespace. They would not be the last.

This is precisely what the assault on 30 October demonstrated. The 705 aerial threats didn’t randomly scatter across Ukraine—they concentrated on energy infrastructure, particularly the integration points connecting Ukraine to neighboring countries. The emergency shutdowns weren’t just about domestic blackouts but also about protecting the interconnected system.

Russia knows this. Moscow can no longer turn the lights on and off through mere political pressure, as it could during the Soviet era. But by attacking these new nodes systematically, it can attempt to sever them permanently—or, at minimum, make the cost of energy independence unbearably high.

New attack surfaces

These energy assets also present a new cyber attack surface that Moscow can and will use. Russian-linked cybercriminal organizations have already demonstrated the ability to infiltrate and disrupt energy control systems. In 2015 and 2016, cyberattacks on Ukraine’s power grid caused widespread blackouts—the first known instance of malware-induced power loss. Cybersecurity experts have warned that similar tactics could be employed against national grid operators in Eastern Europe or even the entire ENTSO-E network.

A disabled LNG terminal, sabotaged substation, or blackout during a cyberattack could cripple a country’s ability to mobilize troops, support NATO operations, or maintain public order. Such attacks are an immediate concern for the ENTSO-E grid and the Ukrainian war effort relying on that grid. Russia has taken steps thus far to avoid provoking a broader war with NATO, but as the war in Ukraine drags on, the Kremlin’s decision calculus may change.

Recognizing this, NATO has begun to take energy resilience more seriously. Article 3 of the NATO treaty commits members to self-help and resilience, which is increasingly interpreted to include critical energy infrastructure. The NATO Energy Security Centre of Excellence, based in Lithuania, has led efforts to study how energy vulnerabilities intersect with military readiness.

Joint exercises increasingly simulate blackout scenarios and hybrid attacks. For its part, the EU is advancing cooperation through Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO) initiatives, such as military mobility and critical infrastructure protection.

These advances have come despite demonstrated Russian willingness to exploit every vulnerability below the threshold of all-out war with NATO. Ukraine approaches its energy decoupling efforts with security at the forefront to ensure these hard-won gains aren’t reversed. Hardening existing infrastructure and entrenching new partnerships in Eastern Europe should be job number one for NATO. For the world’s greatest military alliance, getting this right is important. For Ukraine, it is existential.

Energy infrastructure has always been essential to national survival—but in Ukraine, it’s also become a litmus test of resilience and deterrence. Russia’s long-standing energy dominance is fading, but its ability to strike, disrupt, or destabilize remains. For Ukraine, sovereignty isn’t just about what flows through a pipeline or power line—it’s about ensuring those lines can’t be severed at a moment’s notice.

Thirty-four years after the Berlin Wall fell, Kyiv is finally allowed to fully share in the promise of that moment: a life free from Moscow’s clutches. It has been thirty-four years of hard-fought battles, with many more to come, but strategic energy independence for Ukraine is within reach, and it is worth the fight.

Randall Schmollinger

Randall Schmollinger is an analyst at Geopoly Global focusing on technology and security issues, with a regional interest in the post-Soviet republics.

Editor's note. The opinions expressed in our Opinion section belong to their authors. Euromaidan Press' editorial team may or may not share them.

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China’s newest refinery nearly doubled its Russian crude imports to a record 370,000–405,000 barrels per day in November—not despite Western sanctions, but because of how badly they misaligned.

When Britain and the EU blacklisted Shandong Yulong Petrochemical on 16 October over its Russian oil purchases, Washington didn’t follow suit. Instead, the US sanctioned Russian producers Lukoil and Rosneft in its October package.

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The refinery moved fast. According to Reuters, after Middle Eastern and Canadian suppliers cancelled shipments following the UK designation, Yulong replaced them with Russian crude. The plant—backed by Shandong’s provincial government and valued at over $20 billion—is running above 90% capacity.

Record imports fuel Kremlin’s war chest

That surge translates to roughly 12 million barrels per month flowing to Russia at current purchase rates, revenue heading straight into Moscow’s war budget.

The October sanctions were supposed to close gaps. Yet, Western allies targeted different parts of the supply chain at different times, creating legal grey zones that allowed oil to flow through new intermediaries.

Provincial player steps in where state giants won’t

China’s state importers like Sinopec’s subsidiary Unipec paused Russian trades after Washington’s designations, wary of secondary sanctions. Private and provincial refiners saw opportunity instead, and Yulong took over several East Siberian oil shipments originally earmarked for Unipec.

Yulong’s record November purchases—potentially extending into the coming months, sources say—show how coordination failures don’t reduce oil flows; they shift trade eastward. As long as Western allies sanction different links in the same supply chain without coordination and at different times, Moscow can count on someone to keep the barrels rolling.