Russia has changed tactics of attacks on energy and infrastructure, now Odesa region is «at gunpoint» — Kharchenko

Oleksandr Kharchenko, director of the Energy Research Centre, said that Russia has changed its tactics of strikes against Ukraine and focused its attacks on Odesa region due to «the region's historical energy weakness».

He said this in an interview with Radio NV.

According to Kharchenko, Russia failed to cut off power to the whole of Ukraine and cause large-scale problems across the country at the same time.

«I will try to go through the situation from top to bottom. I would like to start with what is already clear: the Russians have abandoned the idea of hitting the national power grid. In fact, they spent the time from 10 October 2022 to August this year trying to create a so-called national blackout to paralyse Ukraine's energy system and create a lot of problems across the country at the same time. Judging by the last few months, they realised that this is an unattainable dream: they do not have the resources to do so,» says Kharchenko.

In his opinion, the Russian Federation has since changed its tactics and switched to a scorched earth strategy, attacking energy and civilian infrastructure along the frontline and borders.

«After that, they changed their tactics, changed them radically and switched to active attacks and the creation of a scorched earth, that is, a zone where they are trying to destroy both energy and other civilian critical infrastructure, and this zone is along the borders, along the front line and ends in the Odesa region. In fact, absolutely everything that has anything to do with energy, heat supply, water utilities is under attack in this zone,» he added.

Oleksandr Kharchenko stressed that Odesa region «is historically weak in terms of energy», as the region has virtually no own generation.

«Unfortunately, historically, the Southern region has been quite weak in terms of energy. There is some solar generation and a certain amount of wind power, but this is good only as an auxiliary means: it works when there is something to supply people in general, but solar or wind power plants alone cannot provide the region with electricity. Odesa region, along with Kyiv, remains one of the weakest and most deficient regions with a huge population and huge consumption that is not backed by anything. The nearest power plant is in Pivdennoukrainsk, which supplies almost the entire South, and this is wrong,» he added.

As a reminder, on the night of 13 December, Odesa region came under one of the most massive air attacks. Russian troops struck at energy and industrial infrastructure. The attack caused fires and damaged administrative buildings.

On 17 December, a state of emergency was declared in Odesa region following massive strikes by Russian troops on energy infrastructure. The decision was made at a meeting of the Commission on Technogenic and Environmental Safety and Emergencies.

In addition, the commission instructed heads of military administrations, heads of communities and units of the National Police to conduct outreach to businesses to minimise the use of illumination and decorative lighting to save electricity for the needs of the population and critical infrastructure.