Blackouts and no heating: Russia’s winter strike campaign takes aim at Ukraine’s energy network

Russia has launched a second consecutive day of large-scale missile and drone attacks on Ukraine's critical and energy infrastructure, causing widespread power outages as the winter sets in. The Ukrainian Air Force said Russia used 164 strike drones, 112 of them jet-powered, and three Kh-59/69 cruise missiles, of which Ukrainian forces claimed to have intercepted 137 drones.

Energy facilities were damaged across Dnipropetrovsk, Zhytomyr, Rivne, Kharkiv, Odesa and Chernihiv regions, leading to rolling blackouts in northern and central Ukraine. Officials said about 600,000 people in Dnipro city and Dnipropetrovsk region were without electricity, while 140 high-rise buildings in Zhytomyr region had no heating.

The Washington DC based think tank, Institute for the Study of War (ISW) said Russia's winter 2026-27 strike campaign aims to weaken Ukraine's energy security and disrupt civilian life. The air-defence shortage is part of the problem. Germany's Defence Minister Boris Pistorius said Berlin had used up the Patriot interceptor stocks it could transfer to Ukraine.

Kyiv has responded by stepping up attacks on Russian missile launch sites and ballistic missile production facilities, to reduce Moscow's ability to carry out large-scale strikes. The report also points to the scale of Russian losses, Belarusian pro-opposition and pro-Ukrainian hacker groups claimed to have accessed Russian federal records showing at least 440,982 registered deaths of servicemen between February 2022 and August 2026, with an overall toll estimated at more than 450,100, these numbers have also been reported by Moscow Times citing leaked documents.

Total Russian casualties, including killed and seriously wounded, were reportedly approaching 1.6 million by November 2026, and October was reported to be the war's deadliest month for Russian forces, according to the Ukrainian defence ministry. Logistics remain a challenge for Moscow. Deputy Defence Minister Colonel General Valery Solodchuk named the use of unmanned systems to support troops in the roughly 30-km drone-threat zone along the front as a priority. Russia is working on a unified system to give commanders real-time visibility of logistics in the rear. Ukrainian strikes on supply routes, bridges and defence production sites continue to complicate movement.

On the ground, Russian forces kept up offensive operations around Sumy, Kupyansk, Lyman, Slovyansk and Kostyantynivka without confirmed advances. In the southern Kherson region, Ukrainian officials accused Russian forces of using a limited ceasefire around Oleshky to move more than 1,000 personnel, along with weapons, artillery, drones and supplies, across the Dnipro. Ukrainian military sources also said Russian forces were building tunnels to shield movement from Ukrainian drones.