Russia threatens massive energy strikes as warehouse attack kills 38 near Kyiv

The Russian Ministry of Defence announced on Sunday that its forces have begun preparations to launch massive strikes against Ukraine's energy facilities, framing the threatened campaign as retribution for Ukrainian attacks on Russian energy infrastructure. The declaration came days after a Russian strike on a warehouse in Myla, near Kyiv, killed 38 people, injured 20 and left four missing, while fires damaged at least 50 residential homes.

A week of intensified aerial bombardment

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy posted on X that in the past week alone Russia had launched nearly 2,000 strike drones, more than 1,600 aerial bombs and 31 missiles of various types. The figures illustrate the scale of the current air campaign, which has moved beyond the front lines to target logistics, industry and civilian infrastructure deep inside Ukrainian-held territory. The warehouse hit on Friday was described by Ukrainian officials as a civilian facility; the resulting fires spread to surrounding neighbourhoods, compounding the casualties.

The Russian defence ministry's Telegram statement said Moscow had carried out coordinated strikes against an industrial facility in Kyiv, without specifying the Myla warehouse. The ministry's language, "begun preparations to launch massive strikes against Ukraine's energy facilities", signals a deliberate escalation rather than a continuation of the attritional drone war that has characterised the past 18 months.

Energy infrastructure in the crosshairs again

Ukraine's energy system has been a primary target since October 2022, when Russia began systematic attacks on power plants, substations and heating infrastructure. Last winter, rolling blackouts left millions without electricity or heating in sub-zero temperatures. Energy Minister Denys Shmyhal told POLITICO earlier this month that "Putin wants to finish off (Ukraine's) energy system" and that Kyiv was working to strengthen resilience before the coming winter.

Ukraine has since repaired much of the damaged generation capacity and expanded distributed generation, including solar and gas-fired peaking plants. Imports from the European Union via cross-border interconnectors have also increased, providing a buffer that did not exist in 2022. But the grid remains vulnerable: high-voltage transformers are difficult to replace quickly, and the loss of a few critical nodes can cascade into regional blackouts.

Ground offensive talk resurfaces

Beyond the air campaign, Ukrainian officials say intelligence indicates Russia is planning a new ground attack on Kyiv and the northern city of Chernihiv. Pavlo Palisa, deputy head of the presidential office, told reporters that Russian military chiefs have been tasked by the Kremlin's political leadership with planning and preparing for such operations. A direct assault on the capital would represent a dramatic shift from the current focus on the Donbas front, where Russian forces have been grinding forward at high cost.

Kyiv's defences are far stronger than in February 2022. Fortified lines, layered air defences and a battle-hardened army make a repeat of the initial drive on the capital unlikely to succeed without a massive commitment of forces. That calculation may explain the mobilisation figures cited by Defence Minister Yevhenii Khmara.

Mobilisation numbers point to a long war

Khmara said on Sunday that Russia is considering an additional wave of mobilisation: about 300,000 more people this year and another 300,000 next year. He linked the move to Russia's mounting losses at the front and argued that only the perception of losing the war could stop Putin. The numbers are striking: the partial mobilisation of 300,000 announced in September 2022 triggered a domestic exodus and political friction. A repeat on that scale, or larger, would test the Kremlin's social contract again.

Russian officials have not confirmed the figures. The Kremlin has previously relied on volunteer contracts, prison recruitment and covert mobilisation to replenish ranks without declaring a new general call-up. But the sustained intensity of offensives in Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia sectors suggests manpower demand exceeds current inflow. Ukrainian estimates of Russian casualties, killed and wounded, have risen sharply since the summer offensive began, though independent verification remains difficult.

NATO watches the escalation

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said on Saturday that NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte had shared his assessment of the situation on the Ukrainian-Russian front and that "the escalation from Russia's side is progressing." Tusk urged that Ukraine needs greater air support. Poland has been among the most vocal advocates for supplying Ukraine with Western fighter aircraft and long-range missiles, arguing that air superiority is the only way to blunt Russian glide-bomb attacks that have devastated front-line positions.

NATO's own air defence commitments to eastern allies have expanded, with additional Patriot batteries and fighter deployments to Poland, Romania and the Baltic states. But the alliance has stopped short of providing the systems Ukraine says it needs to intercept Russian bombers launching glide bombs from inside Russian airspace. The debate over long-range strike permissions, allowing Ukraine to hit airfields and logistics hubs inside Russia with Western missiles, remains unresolved among allies.

Why this matters

How we got here

What happens next

The Russian defence ministry's public threat to target energy infrastructure on a massive scale removes any ambiguity about the coming months. Ukraine's engineers have rebuilt transformers, rerouted loads and stockpiled spare parts, but the physics of a high-voltage grid means that a determined adversary with sufficient missiles and drones can still inflict widespread, prolonged outages. The warehouse strike in Myla, 38 dead, 50 homes burned, shows that the precision of Russian targeting remains indifferent to civilian proximity.

For European capitals, the calculation is no longer abstract. A winter blackout in Kyiv, Kharkiv or Odesa would drive a new wave of displacement toward the EU's eastern border. Poland, already hosting nearly a million Ukrainian refugees, has made clear through Tusk's statements that it views air defence not as charity but as direct border security. The NATO Secretary-General's alignment with that view, relayed privately and confirmed publicly by Tusk, suggests the alliance is moving toward a more coherent position on what Ukraine needs to survive the next phase.

The mobilisation figures, if accurate, imply that the Kremlin expects the war to continue at current or higher intensity for at least two more years. That timeline extends beyond the US presidential election cycle and into the next European Commission term. It also tests the sustainability of Russia's defence economy, which has so far absorbed the cost through oil revenues, domestic borrowing and repressed consumption. Whether Russian society accepts another 600,000 conscripts without the upheaval of 2022 is an open question, but one the Kremlin appears willing to risk.

Ukraine's immediate requirement remains air defence interceptors, Patriot PAC-3, IRIS-T SLM, SAMP/T missiles, at a rate that matches Russian launch volumes. The nearly 2,000 drones in one week is a rate that exhausts interceptor stocks quickly. Western production lines are expanding but not yet at the scale to sustain a multi-year defence of the whole Ukrainian grid. The gap between launch rate and interceptor supply is the single most consequential metric in this war, and it is widening.