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Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, summing up talks with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio in Riyadh yesterday, February 18, stated that the American side had proposed suspending attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure.
Lavrov claimed that “Russia has never tasked itself with damaging Ukraine’s energy system.”
However, since the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, the Russian armed forces have repeatdly targeted the country’s energy infrastructure.
Fact Investigation Platform has studied individual episodes of the Russian-Ukrainian war and presents several cases of large-scale attacks by the Russian side.
For example, in April 2024, Russia targeted the Trypilska thermal power plant, which supplies 50% of Kyiv’s electricity. In April, the Russian side also targeted three large units of the state-owned Centre nergo company, completely destroying them.
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During the attack, DTEK’s facilities, namely the Burshtyn, Dobrovyn, and Ladyzhyn power plants, were severely damaged, resulting in the company announcing that it had lost about 80% of its electricity generation infrastructure. DTEK, by the way, is Ukraine’s largest private energy company. DTEK controls up to 90% of the country’s coal production and up to 80% of its heat generation. It was founded in 2005.
In August 2024, Russia launched more than 200 missiles and drones into Ukraine. One of the largest airstrikes in history targeted Ukraine’s energy infrastructure. About 8 million households were left without power without warning.
Russia also launched a similar large-scale attack in the winter of 2024, when Ukraine was trying to stockpile natural gas and electricity to keep the households warm during the winter.
In 2022-2023, Russian forces occupied exactly half of Ukraine’s strategic power generation facilities, including the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant.
During the same period, Russian forces occupied or targeted numerous Ukrainian hydropower plants.
In 2022, the Russian side launched a large-scale cyberattack on Ukraine’s energy system resulting in the disruption of some infrastructure.
It should be noted that FIP.am covers only a part of such attacks.
As a result of Russia’s repeated and targeted attacks, Ukraine entered the winter of 2024-2025 with a huge shortage of energy resources. Low gas storage levels and an already fragile electricity grid caused long-term outages throughout the country in the winter.
In fact, Lavrov’s claim that Russia has never set a goal of disabling Ukraine’s energy infrastructure is not confirmed by the actions of that country’s armed forces; targeted, large-scale and repeated attacks indicate the opposite.
Nane Manasyan
