March 2025
Since the beginning of the winter of 2024/2025, the energy system of Ukraine found itself under a renewed, coordinated Russian strikes, but this time, Moscow is changing its tactic and shifting towards the “endless winter”, which implies continued and geographically dispersed attacks that put pressure on the energy network; regarding this, it is worth noting that Russia is not exclusively aiming at physical destruction, but wants to create a chronic supply instability, drain human resources, and destroy the public morale while the negotiations are underway, and thus, in practice, this means that the attacks function as a means of extended exhaustion. Simply put, the first phase, starting in 2022 – shockingly – destroyed almost one half of the capacities and pushed the society to the edge of a humanitarian crisis. Afterwards followed the adaptation phase in 2023/2024, within which Kyiv developed mobile generators, local micro networks, and connected to the EU through Poland, Slovakia, and Romania, and now, we come to the third phase: the battle of endurance, in which the Ukrainian system does not collapse entirely, but stable reconstruction is not making any progress as well, because Russia, with the use of domestic and Iranian UAVs, strategically targets transformer stations and substations, often with a minimal tactical effect, but with a maximum socio-psychological effect – bearing this in mind, Moscow is not attempting to “shut down” the state, but to keep it in a permanent twilight, between functionality and collapse.
The “endless winter” model cordially fits the broader Russian strategy of long-term exhaustion: Moscow is accepting the inability of the complete military collapse of Kyiv and, instead of that, applies a polity which systematically limits the Ukrainian integration into the Western security and economic structures. Regarding this, such an approach is creating an effect of the prolonged insecurity, which directly impacts the population morale, making it difficult for the institutions and local government, at the same time raising the financial burden for the EU, which is allocating an increasing amount of funds for the reconstruction. At the same time, this pattern affects the investment flows as well, because the long-term energy crisis is making Ukraine less attractive for private capital, and thus, in practice, the country is losing investment impulses that would support the long-term resilience.
The Russian attacks no longer target the industrial centers and big power plants; today, they target the social survival network – the psychological ability of citizens to survive through shortage, the cold, and long-term uncertainty – and this is why in Kyiv, Kharkov, and Dnepr, daily disruptions have become new normalcy, but this adaptation comes with a price: gradual erosion of normalcy and redefinition of everyday life through the process that resembles the securitization of the everyday life. Regarding this, the Russian propaganda apparatus is actively disseminating the narrative that the West is no longer ready to pay for the “endless winter”, thus transferring the energy war into the domain of perception and negotiation calculation – the analytical depth of the crisis nowadays includes also the dimension of belief and endurance of the public opinion.
Kyiv is attempting to respond with the development of the new model of energy security, based on decentralization and digital control: the Ministry of Energy launched in January 2025 a project titled “Resilient Grid 2030” and is planning the construction of macro power plants in larger municipalities, as well as a deeper integration into the European ENTSO-E system; however, the financial sustainability and the political fatigue of the West is limiting the speed of implementation, and thus, it is clearly visible that the technical solutions exist, but that they lack stable financial flows and the political will. Regarding this, NATO is internally discussing whether the energy networks in Eastern Europe represent the next target of hybrid operations, and incidents in Poland and Moldova, as well as more often cyber-attacks on gas distributers, bring us to the conclusion that the “energy war” from Ukraine is already spilling over the state borders and is transformed into a controlled chaos which tests the resilience of neighboring systems.
Russian strikes on Ukrainian critical infrastructure represent more than military actions; they are a part of a systemic strategy striving towards the creation of the state of weakness, and thus, the result nowadays is not measured only in megawatts, but in psychological and institutional resilience: while Kyiv is succeeding in avoiding complete collapse, it is constantly changing its operational habits, shortening supply chains and pushing for decentralization. However, bearing all this in mind, it is questionable how long society can maintain new patterns without inevitably wearing out the social capital.
If the “endless winter” trend continues, the year of 2025 might become decisive in the fight for normalcy as a strategic value; in this context, the model of permanent strike is becoming a paradigm of contemporary warfare in which heat, light and hope are treated as resources equally valuable as ammunition, and in the end, regarding this, a question arises how to reconstruct the security architecture which will not only react to incidents, but will also construct long-term resilience and ability of fast recovery.
Author: Miljan Petrović