Can Ukraine black out Russia in winter”?

Ukrainian attacks on Russian oil refineries were just the beginning. Now another target has been added – power infrastructure system. Here, Ukrinform, together with experts, is analyzing the chances of Ukrainian military plunging Moscow into darkness.

Systematic strikes on Russian energy infrastructure are becoming the new reality of the full-fledged war. What used to be isolated operations previously have turned into a meticulous campaign where Ukrainian drones and missiles are increasingly hitting power substations, thermal power plants and combined heat and power plants deep in Russian territory. This hallmarks the opening of a new front – the energy front.

In the meanwhile, Ukraine’s top political leaders and military brass are explicitly hinting that Russia should expect reciprocal responses. The statement made by President Volodymyr Zelensky in late September came as an unambiguous warning of what was to follow: “Civilized countries differ from savages in that they never start first and are not aggressors, but this does not mean that they are weak and should not show weakness. If they threaten a blackout in the capital of Ukraine, the Kremlin should know there will be a blackout in the capital of Russia.”

Ukraine’s military command corroborated his words. The Chief of the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Major General Andriy Hnatov emphasized in an interview with Ukrinform that retaliation will be inevitable: “Any enemy action aimed at harming our country will be met with a symmetrical response. The president was absolutely right. And we will conduct these operations. They will certainly understand that they will not gain any advantage this way.”

This raises the question of whether Ukraine has found a new point of weakness in the aggressor country, and how realistic is the scenario of Moscow and other key regions of the Russian Federation being plunged into darkness?

THE GHOST OF CHAGINO: 2005 MOSCOW BLACKOUT

In this context, it is worth reminding that Moscow has already experienced a total energy collapse, albeit a man-made one.

The May 2005 Moscow power blackouts, a major incident that affected millions across central Russia, began at the Chagino electrical substation.

The power outage began around 10:00 AM on Wednesday, May 25, 2005, and power was fully restored to all areas by May 26. The incident originated at power substation No. 510 Chagino, located in the Kapotnya district in the southeast of Moscow. High-voltage current (500 kV) is typically lowered here via transformers for city use. The initial cause was an equipment failure and subsequent fire at the aging substation, which was built in 1964 and used outdated Soviet-era equipment. A government report later cited the lack of timely repairs on four specific transformers as a contributing factor. The initial failure led to a cascading failure across the power grid, as the remaining transformers and power lines became overburdened and began to fail, eventually causing a rupture in the Moscow energy ring. The primary issue was the dilapidated state of the equipment, which had not been modernized since the Soviet era.

Moscow was experiencing a heat wave with temperatures above 30°C (86°F), leading to high demand due to increased use of air conditioning and other appliances. Unlike other Russian regions, Moscow had no modern automatic load shedding system (SAON) installed, which could have prevented the cascading failure by selectively cutting power to non-critical areas.

 The outage severely affected large areas of Moscow, as well as the surrounding Moscow, Tula, Kaluga, and Ryazan provinces. An estimated 6.5 million people were in the affected zone.

Tens of thousands of people were trapped in the Moscow Metro's stranded trains and in elevators. Railway signaling was disabled, traffic lights failed, and many commercial and government organizations were paralyzed, leading to city-wide gridlock. Buildings like the Federation Council and the General Staff headquarters had to switch to backup power. The Moscow oil refinery stopped production and operated in a recirculation mode to avoid a catastrophe.

The economic damage was estimated at over 2.6 billion rubles (around $90 million at the time), with significant losses for businesses, banks, and the Russian Railways.

The accident had a powerful political effect: the media dubbed it the “energy Chernobyl in Moscow”. The incident prompted significant investment in modernizing Moscow's power grid infrastructure in the following years.

But all this does not negate the main question: is it realistic to plunge the Russian capital and the surrounding regions into complete darkness now, but not because of wear and tear, but with targeted strikes?

FALL 2025: A DOMINO EFFECT FOR RUSSIAN ENERGY GRIDS

While 2005 blackout was the result of internal insolvency, the fall of 2025 saw a new, external threat to the Russian energy infrastructure system.

Since the beginning of September 2025, Russia has been experiencing increasingly frequent power outages resulting from Ukrainian drone and missile strikes against energy facilities. These attacks, initially perceived as local incidents in near-the-border regions, have gradually spread out deep into Russian rear areas, revealing their vulnerability to such attacks.

The first major blackouts occurred in the Russian city of Belgorod in late September, following a Ukrainian  drone strike on the city’s thermal power plant and the Luch electrical substation. The strike caused a total blackout across the city of Belgorod and several nearby settlements in the region, including Stary Oskol, Gubkin, Shebekino, Chernyanka, Korocha, Dubovoye, and Severny.  In addition to electricity loss, residents reported widespread disruptions to water supply and internet services. Traffic lights stopped working, public transport was affected, and people were reportedly trapped in elevators. Electricity was eventually restored to most residents by September 30, but repair work was extensive.

Belgorod experienced a second major blackout just a week later, in night hours of October 4, when the Luch substation was hit again, leaving nearly 40,000 residents without power and requiring further significant repairs. 

In October, explosions from drone attacks targeted infrastructure facilities in several districts of the Kursk region, including the Sudzha, Korenovo, and Glushkovo districts. Authorities reported power outages, with around 67 settlements in the Kursk region left without electricity following the attacks. The power substation in Sudzha was among the facilities affected. Sources within the Security Service of Ukraine (SSU) confirmed that the SSU was behind the drone strikes. They noted that the specific substations targeted in Sudzha, Lyubimovka, and Glushkovo were connected to important Russian military facilities.

Photo via Astra Telegram channel

The climax came in late October and early November, when the city of Zhukovsky, located in the Moscow Oblast, experienced a major blackout following large-scale Ukrainian drone attacks targeting energy infrastructure in the Moscow region. Residents of Zhukovsky and surrounding towns reported losing electricity late at night, with videos on social media showing darkened streets. The blackout also disrupted Russia's electricity-dependent rail transport systems.

Ukrainian intelligence later claimed responsibility for damaging a key fuel pipeline near Moscow during the same period, indicating a coordinated campaign of strikes on Russian energy and military logistics infrastructure. Ukrainian sources framed the incident as a "proof of concept" that their precision strikes could effectively hit energy and logistics hubs deep inside Russian territory.

A similar scenario was repeated a few days later in the Kursk region. And on the night of November 5, Ukrainian forces targeted and struck a substation in the Vladimir region and the thermal power plant (TPP) in the Oryol region as part of a series of drone and likely missile attacks on Russian energy facilities. The drone attack on an energy facility in the suburbs of Vladimir hit a crucial 750 kV substation that is a key node in Russia's high-voltage grid, transmitting power from several major power plants towards Moscow and central Russia.

 The Oryol TPP is the largest source of electricity and heat in the region. The strikes caused significant damage, with residents reporting loud explosions and bright flashes, despite Russian claims of downing all incoming drones with air defense systems.

Finally, the Kostroma State District Power Plant (Kostroma GRES) --  Russia's third-largest thermal power plant by installed capacity (around 3,600 MW) and a key hub in the national energy system, supplying power towards Moscow and central regions -- was attacked by Ukrainian drones overnight on November 6, 2025.

These strikes became a signal that the energy war had gone beyond the frontline territories. Ukraine is demonstrating its capability to strike deep into Russian energy “heartland,” forcing the Kremlin to disperse resources to protect facilities that were previously considered unreachable.

WILL MOSCOW BE PLUNGED INTO DARFKNESS?

Experts’ opinions on the probability of a total blackout in the Russian Federation are polar opposites, ranging from a firm “yes” to a categorical “no”. The spectrum of opinions encompasses technical capabilities, strategic expediency and potential consequences.

“Technically possible and strategically necessary”

Some experts are convinced that Ukraine has all the technical capabilities to cause critical damage to Russia’s energy infrastructure system. Among them is military expert Pavlo Narozhnyi, who is confident that Ukraine “can cause a blackout in the Russian Federation. “There was already a comment from President Zelensky, who said that if Russia threatens a blackout in the capital of Ukraine, the Kremlin should know there will be a blackout in the capital of Russia. If it continued to target Ukraine's power grid, it should expect a blackout threat for Moscow.”

Pavlo Narozhnyi

Narozhnyi points to Russia's key vulnerability, that is the lack of external support. "The thing is that even when the Russians destroy powerful power plants in Ukraine, we have an "extension cord" - electricity is supplied to us from the European Union. In contrast, Russia, if something bad happens, has no one to rely on - it has to rely solely on itself. It will not work to connect, for example, to Kazakhstan (or another country), because no one will give Russia the electricity it needs."

In addition, he emphasizes Russia’s technological dependence: "Russia does not have a domestic industry for production of thermal power turbines, and it will be quite difficult to buy new turbines from other markets. So, if we destroy turbine halls (with missiles, because UAVs are not capable of this) at thermal power plants in Russia, this will cause a huge electricity shortage."

According to the expert, Ukraine does not even have to strike directly at the capital city: “We can destroy the generation infrastructure around it – even at a distance of 100-200 km – and then the Russians will have to invent something, switch to somewhere, balance the system, and so on. So, power outages will have to be implemented even in Moscow… Therefore, we can reach with our own weapons and turn off the enemy’s electricity grid.”

Valery Yakovenko, co-founder of a drone development company, agrees, pointing to the obsolescence of the Russian energy grid: “The energy infrastructure system in Muscovy was built back in Soviet era on the same principles that everything else was built there. We saw this on the example of Ukraine... how vulnerable it is when it comes to pinpoint strikes on distribution or generation capacities. And it is absolutely possible to cause damage to the enemy in approximately the same way.”

Valeri Yakovenko

Yakovenko contrasts the Russian system to the Ukrainian one, which underwent a comprehensive modernization amid the war: “While Ukraine has rebuilt its grids over the past three and a half years... working on creating smart grids with power flows...then in the territory of Muscovy... there is really no such story.” For success, in his opinion, “a mixed attack with long-range drones and missiles is needed. And Ukraine has all the technical capabilities to achieve this.”

 Stanislav Ihnatiev

Stanislav Ihnatiev, an analyst at the Ukrainian Institute for the Future, believes that the most recent attacks already prove Ukraine’s capabilities: “The blackout in the Moscow region... may indicate that Ukraine has the ability to cause a blackout even in the capital of the Russian Federation. (…) We can partially de-energize certain areas in Moscow, the Moscow region, and the Greater Ring around Moscow… We can gradually move towards an energy blackout of key facilities,” the expert noted.

“The long game: Accumulation of the effect”

Another group of experts are looking at the situation more strategically. They agree that the possibility of major blackouts in Russia does exist, but warn that it will not be a quick process. Mykhailo Honchar, president of the Center for Global Studies “Strategy XXI,” draws parallels with the successful campaign against Russian refineries.

“It all depends on the correct formulation of the task and the availability of appropriate resources. We are already seeing the result of our systematic work against Russian oil refining sector... but there was no such result achieved [before] because we lacked resources and a ‘long arm’. Once long-range weapons had become available, Ukraine began to reach targets located within the range from the Baltic to the Black Sea. “The same goes for energy,” says Honchar. “From a technical point of view, we can definitely handle this task.”

Mykhailo Honchar

At the same time, he notes that Moscow is much better protected, so “the effect will not be quick to come; we have to go the accumulation path, as with oil refining.”

The analyst additionally points to the complexity of the task at hand, saying, “The major nuclear power facilities in Russia are also located in its European part, and they provide a substantial flow into the general energy grid, amounting to around 20 percent.”

That being said, Honchar warns against excessive public announcements: “First do, then talk. Not the other way around... The more such “blab” not supported with action, the more strikes on Dnipro, Pavlohrad, Zaporizhzhia... The aggressor will continue the war until it is brought to a state of incapacity. No talk will affect it.”

Regarding the tools to achieve this, Honchar is realistic, saying, “There is no miracle weapon... some effect can be achieved using solely drones, and this is proven by the results of our work against Russian oil refineries (95% of the destruction was done by our drones). But it will take a huge number of drones to destroy a high-voltage substation.... That is why there is need for more capable means of destruction... but this depends on the availability of appropriate resources.”

“Specific tactics: Destruction of connections and a ‘ring’ around Moscow”

Some experts point to specific tactics that Ukraine seems to be using. Energy expert Oleksandr Kharchenko explains that the Russian power grid is vulnerable due to its sheer size and principle of operation. “Given the large number of time zones and the expanse of the territory, the Russian energy grid operates on the principle of time balancing... but Ukrainian drone strikes can destroy it, which will cause lengthy power outages in the Southern Federal District of the Russian Federation.”

Oleksandr Kharchenko

The key target, he says, is the connections between district power grids. "Our strikes are gradually knocking out the structure that supports the transportation of electricity between time zones. We are not very far from the critical point - there is 40, 60 percent left. When we take out high-voltage substations... the outages will be more intense than in Ukraine, I guarantee you."

Regarding Moscow, Kharchenko is cautious: "The capital of the Russian Federation has its own internal generation and it is well protected, so it will not be easy to turn off the enemy’s capital. But I am sure that our unmanned systems know well what to do to show that two can play at this game."

Oleksandr Kovalenko, a defense and policy analyst, develops this idea, predicting a "blackout for the New Year." He claims that the strikes are not random: "Drones are not just mindlessly striking facilities... but are creating emergency conditions in terms of the flow of electricity between regions and into the capital itself."

Oleksandr Kovalenko

He gives examples: “The Oryol TPP is the main and largest source of generation... in the entire region. The Vladimirskaya substation is among the most powerful in Russia... All this indicates that rolling blackouts in the Russian regions will soon become a forced and inevitable measure. At the same time, if the strikes continue, these restrictions will also affect Moscow, around which the ring of incapacitated substations and TPPs is tightening.”

Kovalenko adds a touch of irony, referring to the campaign against the oil refining sector: “On the other hand, if there is no power, you can always turn on the generator, fill up the gas tank... But where they in Russia would get the gas from?”, he inquires ironically.

“Skeptics: Inefficient and wasteful”

However, there are also polar opposite opinions. Particularly investment banker Serhiy Fursa regards such a strategy to be fundamentally wrong. “Attacks on civilian infrastructure do not work historically. The experience of World War II showed that bombing rear areas in the enemy’s territory does not make an army stop. The Russian strategy of destroying the Ukrainian energy infrastructure has not worked in four years of war. The maximum that Russia achieves are temporary inconveniences.

Fursa points to the incomparability of potentials: "Ukraine has much less potential compared to Russia’s. The Russian energy infrastructure system is far more sustainable and branched out. The territory of Russia is much larger, which complicates any large-scale strikes on its infrastructure."

 Serhiy Fursa

His conclusion is categorical: “Therefore, I believe that we should not waste limited resources on symbolic strikes... There is no point in replicating the Russian strategy that has proven its ineffectiveness.” According to the banker, even after receiving long-range weapons, Ukraine “must continue to strike at military warehouses, airfields, and the facilities that sustain the war. Even strikes against refineries are questionable.”

Fursa summarizes that Ukraine is fighting in conditions of severe shortages, so “instead of quantity, we must rely on quality and efficiency to compensate for the lack of people with technology, weapons, innovations, and the targeted use of each resource.”

CONCLUSION: WILL UKRAINE TURN OFF THE SWITCH?

An analysis of the situation and expert opinions shows that there is no single answer to the question as to the possibility of Ukraine inflicting a total blackout on Russia. The campaign of attacks on Russian energy infrastructure is a fact, and it is growing in scale and intensity. However, its ultimate goal and its achievability remain the subject of heated debate.

On the one hand, skeptics (like Serhiy Fursa) consider it a waste of valuable resources and a replication of the enemy’s failed strategy.

On the other hand, a full pool of military and energy experts (Narozhnyi, Yakovenko, Kharchenko, Kovalenko) regard this to be a fully realistic and technically feasible plan. They point to specific vulnerabilities of the Russian Federation: an outdated and worn-out Soviet-era network, technological dependence on Western turbines, and a one-of-a-kind structure of the infrastructure system, making it vulnerable to a breakdown in connections between regions.

Somewhere in between are opinions of strategic realists like Mykhailo Honchar, who compare this campaign to strikes on oil refineries, saying it is possible, but takes time, a “long arm” and a systemic “accumulation” of the effect.

Meanwhile, the government in Kyiv, while refraining from commenting on the strategy in detail, clearly articulates the principle of reciprocity. Warnings of a “cold winter” for the aggressor have already been sounded. As Andriy Kovalenko, head of the Center for Countering Disinformation, emphasizes: “A cold winter awaits them… because a reciprocal response will inevitably come. And it will be very painful, because the bigger the country – and Russia is bigger – the harder it is to repair and restore. And they, unlike us, made no preparations for strikes on their energy sector.”

The question, it seems, is no longer in whether Ukraine will respond, but how destructive and systemic this response can become, and in whether the 2005 Moscow backout will be only a pale shadow of what can await Moscow in 2025. We hope so...

Myroslav Liskovych. Kyiv