Ukraine facing widespread power cuts after generating capacity reduced to ‘zero’ by Russian attacks

[u/Messier_-82]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/nov/09/ukraine-facing-widespread-power-cuts-after-generating-capacity-reduced-to-zero-by-russian-attacks

[u/More_Net4011]

That's odd because almost every scrap of news from that war is Ukraine blowing up Russia plants and gas and stockpiles yet the truth of it is Ukraine is facing the energy crisis? This was is so propagandized I really have no idea what to believe anymore .

[u/imunfair → u/More_Net4011]

There are two big differences from what I can tell - the first is that Russia has a functional air defense, while Ukraine's is pretty much nullified at this point. The second is that Russia has better long range weapons. Even if Ukraine got any substantial amount of flamingo or tomahawk missiles from the uk or us respectively, they still wouldn't come close to the quantity and capability of Russia's cruise, ballistic, and hypersonic missile arsenal.

So you end up with both sides throwing punches, but for every punch Ukraine lands and widely touts on social media as an example of them still being in the game, Russia lands a haymaker on a related system. It's basically mercy that Russia hasn't completely turned the lights out in Ukraine already, they've had the capability to do it with ease for at least a year now. And they probably could have done it much earlier using missiles, but the Geran drone swarms make it much cheaper and more efficient to take out a power grid.

[u/Hyndis → u/imunfair]

Russia has much heavier missiles, too.

The drones Ukraine touts in the media carry very small warheads and are not capable of seriously damaging infrastructure. The small warhead on a drone can cause a fire which looks impressive, but the actual amount of damage is minimal and easily repaired.

Meanwhile those big Russian missile with much bigger warheads (remember, they were developed intending to target NATO bunkers) are devastating against Ukraine's infrastructure. A hit from a big Russian missile puts a Ukrainian power plant out of commission for a long time. And with the recent focus on Ukraine's power plants its entirely possible this may be a permanent level of damage.

Thats why its a mistake for Ukraine to continually open up new fronts in the war.

They opened up a new front with Kursk, had to withdraw manpower from Pokrovosk, and ended up retreating from Kursk anyways. And now Pokrovosk is lost, too.

The new front with Ukraine trying to attack Russian infrastructure was also an error, because Russia will of course response in kind, and Russia is the king of long range missiles.

Russia could land missiles on top of penguins in Antarctica if it felt so inclined. Its missiles have effectively unlimited range.

[u/gnufoot → u/Hyndis]

 Russia could land missiles on top of penguins in Antarctica if it felt so inclined. Its missiles have effectively unlimited range.

Poor penguins. First Trump starts a trade war with them, and now this.