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Darkness Closes in on Ukraine

Suriya Evans-Pritchard Jayanti

7-9 minutes

The Kremlin has returned to a strategy of obliterating Ukrainian energy infrastructure in an effort to make the country unlivable. It’s having worrying success.

Wave after wave of Russian drones and missiles have severely damaged or destroyed every one of Ukraine’s largest thermal and hydroelectric power plants since early March, leaving a hobbled energy sector, mass blackouts, reduced defensive and reconstruction capacity, and waning morale.

As much as 60% of its power generation capacity may now be out of action and the situation is worsening after the Kremlin fired 4,000 missiles and drones in March alone.

The need for renewed Western support has never been higher; the certainty of it arriving in time has never been lower. Ukraine has urgently asked for another five to seven Patriot anti-missile batteries; so far, one has been pledged by Germany.

DTEK, Ukraine’s largest private power company, reported that 80% of its generation capacity was down after each of its thermal power plants (TPPs) were hit over several weeks.

All three of state-owned Centrenergo’s thermal plants have now been knocked out. The Zmiivska TPP near Kharkiv was destroyed on March 22; the Vuhlehirska TPP in Donetsk has been occupied by Russian forces since July 2022; and on April 11 Russian missiles destroyed the Trypilska TPP, the last major non-nuclear power source for the Kyiv, Cherkasy, and Zhytomyr regions.

This destruction comes on the heels of the bombing of the Dnipro Hydroelectric Plant and Dam in March, the largest left in Ukraine since Russian sabotage destroyed the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Plant and Dam in June 2022. The Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) remains in shutdown, further reducing Ukraine’s baseload generation capacity by 20%.

Russia has also begun targeting natural gas storage facilities in Ukraine, which threatens Europe’s energy security more broadly. Above its own approximately 20 billion cubic meter (bcm) storage, Ukraine can hold approximately 10 bcm of EU gas. Although the storage facilities themselves are underground, their pumping stations have been hit by Russian drones and rockets, requiring repairs and making them unreliable reservoirs for EU companies and consumers.

Natural gas prices spiked on the news, as concerns about shortages next winter set in. With the largest storage capacity in Europe, at 32 bcm, losing Ukraine as a storage partner will increase the EU’s energy vulnerability, while also hurting one of the few businesses for which Kyiv has a clear competitive advantage on the continent.

All of this demonstrates that Russia is becoming better at aiming, and more strategic in its choice of targets.

In particular, the total destruction of Trypilska TPP, located on the Dnipro River 25 miles south of Kyiv, is symbolic. The plant was reportedly previously protected by air defense systems, but with the drying up of US military aid for Ukraine, belt-tightening required those defenses be moved elsewhere.

The difficult situation imposed on Ukraine by US political dysfunction has clearly not been lost on the Kremlin, which has timed these latest attacks to maximize damage while it can.

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If the US Congress manages to pass a Ukraine aid bill, the country could certainly use the help immediately. Estimates are that the besieged country is now operating with as little as 40% of its power sector. Luckily, winter has passed and warm weather through September will mean few die for want of electricity and heat.

But technical experts say the damage to the power sector — and specifically the generation infrastructure — is so extensive that it will take months to years for it to be repaired.

While military and energy equipment assistance is required urgently, Ukraine will need generous support in the medium term, too, to rebuild its energy sector. This element of reconstruction is estimated to cost as much as $11bn, according to recent World Bank and UN estimates. The CEO of Ukraine’s electrical grid operator Ukrenergo, Volodymyr Kudrytskyi, conservatively estimated that an additional $100m of damage has been inflicted just in recent days.

With such high numbers and long time horizons, the damage is likely to slow Ukrainian reconstruction. It may also dampen hopes for a swift EU accession given the 24% GDP decline Kyiv has suffered since 2021. Among numerous other issues and factors, limited energy and power mean higher prices, which in turn fuels inflation, and the EU won’t admit any country with inflation of more than 1.5% above its top three member states.

Ukraine’s 2023 inflation was 17.66% higher than in 2022, which was itself 20.18% higher than in 2021. The hardships of life without reliable power, heat, and water could also force more Ukrainians over the border as refugees, further depreciating the country’s capacity to rebuild a robust economy.

The lone silver lining in the very difficult energy and economic situation facing Ukraine is that the country can reconstruct itself as a fully transitioned “clean power” hub for the rest of Europe.

It has pledged to reduce carbon emissions to 65% by 2030 and 100% by 2060, with 50% of its power from renewable sources and 50% from nuclear by 2035. With most of its legacy fossil fuel infrastructure demolished, achieving these targets can be accelerated with new green alternatives. In fact, DTEK opened a 118 MW wind farm in Ukraine in 2023, and other renewables have also been constructed, even amid war.

Energoatom, the state-owned nuclear company, has plans to build new large-scale nuclear plants, too, and is likely to outpace any competition in Europe thanks to the country’s established nuclear industry. Exporting low- or zero-emissions power to Europe will surely play a large role in funding the reconstruction.

Getting over the current energy sector crisis will, however, take time and money. Ukrainian energy experts and technicians are working around the clock, again, to patch the systems and restore power to the country.

More than two long and exhausting years into a war they never asked for, and after repairing the energy infrastructure Russia hit in 2022, it is remarkable that Ukraine manages to stay united and hopeful.

But if the country doesn’t get the military, financial, and energy equipment support it so urgently needs, it will have no way of fixing the damage faster than Russia can continue to inflict it. Without the West, Ukraine may go dark.