Russian army's series of strikes on Ukraine's energy sector is part of a broader campaign – ISW

A series of massive Russian missile strikes on Ukrainian energy facilities is part of a broader campaign. In this way, the Kremlin is trying to force Ukraine and the West to abstain from making political decisions.

The enemy also keeps trying to "freeze" the Ukrainian population in the winter. This is stated in the analysis of the Institute for War Studies.

The invaders have repeatedly attacked Ukrainian infrastructure in the fall and winter since the start of the full-scale invasion in 2022. The Russian Ministry of Defense said that Russian troops struck on December 12-13, allegedly in response to a Ukrainian strike on Taganrog, Rostov region, on December 11 using ATACMS missiles.

The ISW emphasized that the occupiers probably planned to carry out such a strike regardless and conveniently used the December 11 strike to justify Russian attacks on Ukrainian critical infrastructure.

Analysts noted that such Russian messages are aimed at softening calls from the Russian ultranationalist community for retaliation for Ukrainian strikes against Russia. Also, such rhetoric is intended to support the Kremlin's reflexive control campaign aimed at forcing Western countries to decide that Ukraine's use of Western-supplied weapons and future peace talks will benefit Russia.

As a reminder, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that the aggressor country Russia deliberately waited for a cold snap to launch a new massive attack on Ukraine's energy infrastructure. This enemy attack was one of the largest.

Earlier it was reported that the enemy's targets this time were energy infrastructure and transportation networks, particularly in the west of the country. DTEK's thermal power plants and other energy facilities in several regions were attacked, and 5 out of 9 nuclear power units had to reduce their capacity.

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