As the colder winter months approach, Ukraine’s state-owned energy giant Naftogaz Group has revealed a sharp spike in Russian attacks targeting its operations, shedding new light on Moscow’s long-standing strategy of weaponizing weather to erode Ukrainian civilian resilience amid the ongoing full-scale invasion.
In a public statement released Monday, the company confirmed that Russian forces carried out 13 separate strikes on Naftogaz facilities across Ukraine in the seven-day period ending Sunday. Since the start of 2025, the energy provider’s infrastructure has been targeted nearly 300 times overall. The latest wave of attacks left critical equipment and production capabilities severely damaged, though no Naftogaz staff members were reported injured in the assaults. Strikes hit energy sites across multiple Ukrainian regions, with one key facility hit repeatedly over the week.
This campaign against energy infrastructure is part of a broader pattern that has persisted since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022. For more than three years, Moscow has systematically targeted Ukraine’s national power grid, launching barrages during cold winter months to cut off civilian access to electricity, heating, and running water — a tactic Ukrainian officials have labeled “weaponizing winter” — with the explicit goal of breaking Ukrainian public resolve to continue the war. Ukrainian authorities warn they expect this aggressive campaign against critical energy infrastructure to continue through the upcoming winter season.
The escalation of energy attacks comes as both sides expand long-range aerial operations amid a largely stalemated ground conflict. With troop movements largely frozen along the roughly 1,250-kilometer front line, where drone and robotic surveillance and defense have bogged down large-scale advances, both Russia and Ukraine are pouring resources into developing new long-range weaponry and ramping up cross-border strikes.
On Monday, officials on both sides released casualty tolls from overnight strikes: Ukrainian long-range attacks into Russian territory left seven people dead, while four Ukrainian civilians were killed in new Russian barrages. After relying heavily on foreign military support in the first years of the invasion, Ukraine has rapidly scaled up domestic weapons production in recent months. Over the weekend, Kyiv launched a massive salvo of more than 800 domestically produced long-range drones targeting sites inside Russia, and has successfully struck targets as far as 2,000 kilometers from the Ukrainian border, including storage depots belonging to Wildberries, Russia’s largest domestic e-commerce retailer. One recent high-profile strike deep inside Russian territory ignited a major fire at a key oil refinery.
United Nations data underscores the growing toll of intensified Russian strikes on Ukrainian civilian populations. As of recent counts, Russian attacks on urban civilian sites including apartment buildings, ports, schools, and hospitals have killed nearly 17,000 Ukrainian civilians since the invasion began. Last week, the UN reported that the 437 civilian casualties recorded in July 2025 marked a 70% increase compared to the same month a year earlier, as Russian barrages have grown more frequent and intense.
Moscow has recently taken advantage of a critical gap in Ukraine’s air defense capabilities: a severe shortage of American-made Patriot interceptor missiles, the only system currently in Ukraine’s arsenal that can effectively counter Russian ballistic missiles. Despite this challenge, Kyiv is moving quickly to address the gap through domestic innovation and international partnership. Ukraine is currently developing its own domestically produced ballistic missile to conduct retaliatory strikes against Russian targets, and is collaborating with multiple European nations to expand production of domestic anti-ballistic air defense systems.
This ongoing escalation of long-range attacks, particularly against critical energy infrastructure ahead of winter, has raised new concerns about the humanitarian impact on Ukrainian civilians as the war enters its fourth year.