Russia has launched one of its heaviest combined attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure in months, just as temperatures begin falling.
Overnight between September 30 and October 1, a Russian barrage involving nearly 190 missiles and drones targeted Ukraine.
Putin New Year’s Message. Image Credit: Russian Government.
Vladimir Putin Russian President 2019. Image Credit: Kremlin.
Notably, the attack included about 174 jet-powered drones, accompanied by an assortment of ballistic missiles and other weapons.
The strikes hit Kyiv and critical infrastructure across numerous Ukrainian regions.
The immediate consequences of the attack included emergency power cuts, transportation disruption, water-system problems, infrastructure damage, and the deaths of at least seven people, including one child.
The strategic significance of the attacks is hard to ignore, coming just before winter, when damage to electrical and heating infrastructure is hardest and most consequential to absorb.
This isn’t new, necessarily; Russia has been attacking Ukraine’s grid since 2022, but now the scale, persistence, and increasingly diverse mix of weaponry has changed.
The Weapons Lineup
Russia isn’t just firing one type of missile at Ukrainian power plants.
Instead, Russian raids in recent months combine multiple threats.
In the latest attack, for example, Russia deployed a large number of jet-powered drones, ballistic missiles, and likely other missile types.
Each weapon type presents the defender with a different problem and requires a different solution, which of course complicates the defensive scheme and response.
Ballistic missiles are extremely fast and difficult to intercept, requiring Ukraine’s most sophisticated systems.
Drones are cheaper, available en masse, and can approach from multiple directions. Combining drones with missiles creates a saturation problem.
In response, Ukrainian radar and command networks must detect incoming threats, classify them, determine trajectories, assign the appropriate interceptor, and decide which targets absolutely must be defended.
Russia, with these saturation-style attacks, doesn’t even need every weapon to penetrate; it only needs enough to get through to damage enough infrastructure at a rate that Ukraine can’t repair expediently.
Introducing Jet Drones
The most notable weapon used in the new attacks is the jet-powered drone.
This marks an important evolution from the familiar propeller-driven drones Russia has deployed since the start of the war.
Traditional Shaheds, for example, are dangerous because they’re cheap, numerous, and long-range.
But they are also quite slow, which gives Ukraine an opportunity to use cheaper defenses, like machine gun teams, EW, and interceptor drones.
Jet-powered drones, meanwhile, compress the engagement window considerably, likely forcing Ukraine to expend more capable (and more expensive) interceptors against them.
This could potentially be a valuable proposition, in literal fiscal terms, even when a drone is intercepted.
Attacking the Inventory
Russia is targeting Ukrainian infrastructure, yes, but that’s only the first target set in the scheme.
The second target set is Ukraine’s finite air-defense arsenal.
Because every major barrage forces Ukraine to expend missiles, it strains Ukraine and the West, even when missiles are successfully intercepted.
Patriot and other advanced interceptors are not unlimited.
Western production and replenishment matter.
Russia can manufacture and launch drones in far greater quantities than during the early war, which creates an economic asymmetry for Ukraine.
Inexpensive attackers being met with expensive interception systems is a hard-to-sustain arrangement, especially when Russia mixes devastating ballistic missiles with their cheap drones.
Ukraine can’t simply ignore the barrage. This is part of the logic behind layered saturation.
October Timing
The timing is intentional. Striking a transformer means far less in July than in January.
Ukraine is on the verge of facing sub-zero nighttime temperatures.
Heating demand obviously rises this time of year; if heating becomes unavailable, this creates significant strain on the population.
Repairs also become increasingly difficult as weather worsens.
Russia therefore has a strong military logic for degrading infrastructure before the cold arrives; by damaging Ukrainian infrastructure now, Ukraine will have to consume spare parts, deploy repair crews, and drain air-defense inventories.
And then, when the attacks continue in the winter, Ukraine will already be vulnerable from weeks and months of repairs.
Accordingly, Russia doesn’t need to destroy Ukraine’s national grid outright; Russia only needs to destroy infrastructure faster than Ukraine can repair or replace it.
About the Author: Harrison Kass
Harrison Kass is a writer and attorney focused on national security, technology, and political culture. His work has appeared in Tablet, City Journal, The Hill, The Spectator, and The Cipher Brief. He holds a JD from the University of Oregon and a master’s in Global & Joint Program Studies from NYU. More at harrisonkass.com.
