The New Energy Stalemate in Ukraine

A gas station hit by a Russian drone strike, Kyiv, Ukraine, September 2026 Valentyn Ogirenko / Reuters TATIANA MITROVA is a Global Fellow at the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University. SERGEY VAKULENKO is a Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center in Berlin. Share & Download Print unlock this feature or Sign in. Save Sign in and save to read later Copy This is a subscriber-only feature. or Sign in. Chicago MLA APSA APA Chicago Cite not available at the moment MLA Cite not available at the moment APSA Cite not available at the moment APA Cite not available at the moment This is a subscriber-only feature. or Sign in. Europe has also provided crucial replacement technology. In 2025, the European Commission delivered equipment from a retired Lithuanian thermal power plant to Ukraine in 149 shipments, enabling Ukraine to provide power to one million people. Such transfers have turned foreign utilities and suppliers into part of Ukraine’s rapid repair system. In September, Ukraine and the UN Development Program launched a new coordination center to speed up the installation of donated energy equipment. Expanded use of batteries and distributed power also play a growing role. In September 2025, the Ukrainian energy company DTEK and the U. S.-based battery maker Fluence installed battery storage at six sites around Kyiv and Dnipro, with enough capacity to supply 600,000 households, roughly half of Kyiv, for two hours. Meanwhile, Kyiv has put in place 150 megawatts of distributed power generation—not enough to cover winter peak demand, but sufficient to provide more than half of the city’s essential services, including water supplies, hospitals, and heating systems. Nonetheless, Ukrainian reports suggest that 2,500 to 3,000 of Kyiv’s 12,000 apartment buildings could enter winter without an alternative heat supply. Russia does not have to switch off Ukraine’s power to impose an extraordinary burden. That vulnerability is especially dangerous because restoring electricity does not automatically restore heat. Replacement boilers can help, but they must be installed locally, supplied with fuel, and connected to functioning heat networks, often while the same city remains under repeated attack. Last winter, UN monitors recorded at least 74 Russian attacks on heating infrastructure across Ukraine—attacks that left hundreds of thousands of people without heat or hot water for weeks on end in frigid temperatures. Keeping the national electric grid running did not make those homes habitable in freezing weather. Residents can try to solve the problem with electric space heaters, but their widespread use could overload the already fragile grid.