Russian airstrikes on Ukraine's electricity generation, transmission and distribution facilities likely violate international humanitarian law, according to the United Nations Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine (HRMMU).
The report released Thursday focused on nine waves of attacks between March and August this year.
HRMMU said it had visited seven power plants that were damaged or destroyed by the attacks, as well as 28 communities affected by the attacks.
“There are reasonable grounds to believe that multiple aspects of the military campaign to damage or destroy Ukraine’s civilian electricity and heat production and transmission infrastructure have violated fundamental principles of international humanitarian law,” the report said.
The first major wave of attacks came in 2022, several months after Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February of that year.
The attacks have continued throughout the war, although Moscow has significantly stepped up its campaign since last March.
Each wave of strikes has left Ukrainian cities without electricity for hours and weeks.
Ukraine claims the attack on its energy system is a war crime, and the International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued arrest warrants for four Russian officials and military officers over the bombing of civilian electricity infrastructure.
Russia says the energy infrastructure is a legitimate military target and has dismissed the charges against its officials as irrelevant.
“Russia is trying to plunge Ukraine into darkness with targeted attacks on its energy systems,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said Thursday, announcing that 160 million euros ($178 million) from the proceeds of frozen Russian assets would be allocated to cover Ukraine’s urgent humanitarian needs this winter.
A thermal power plant is being dismantled in Lithuania and will be rebuilt in Ukraine, where 80 percent of the country's thermal power plants have been destroyed, he said.
The HRMMU said the attacks posed risks to Ukraine's water supply, sewage and sanitation, heating and hot water supply, public health, education and the broader economy.
A particular problem was highlighted in urban areas, where most homes are connected to centralised heating and hot water systems.
The report notes that nearly 95 percent of residents in the Ukrainian capital, kyiv, rely on centralized basement heating systems whose output requires electric pumps to reach the upper floors of the building.
“Without emergency power supplies, millions of urban residents could be left without heating,” he warned.
The HRMMU cited experts as saying that Ukrainians should expect power outages of between four and 18 hours a day this winter.
'The toughest test yet'
The International Energy Agency on Thursday made a similarly grim prediction, with IEA executive director Fatih Birol saying the coming winter would be the “toughest test yet” for Ukraine's energy grid.
The IEA report states that in 2022 and 2023 “about half of Ukraine’s power generating capacity was occupied by Russian forces, destroyed or damaged, and about half of the grid’s large substations were damaged by missiles and drones.”
The report warns of a “huge gap between available electricity supply and peak demand” and urges European countries to speed up the delivery of equipment and parts to rebuild damaged facilities, as well as calling for measures to protect them from drones.
Latest attacks
On Thursday, Ukraine's national power grid operator Ukrenergo said Russia attacked power infrastructure in Sumy overnight, leading to a temporary power outage in the northeastern region.
Nine regions of Ukraine were attacked by Russia overnight, according to the war-torn country's air force, which said it shot down all 42 drones and one of four missiles.
Serhiy Lysak, governor of the central Dnipropetrovsk region, said the air force had shot down a missile over his region and that no one there was hurt.
Kharkiv regional governor Oleh Syniehubov said six people were wounded in a Russian attack in the eastern town of Kupiansk, 8 kilometers (5 miles) from the front line.
In the city of Kharkiv, civilian infrastructure, a school, a kindergarten and 10 apartment buildings were damaged, he added.
An educational institution was also damaged in the Cherkasy region, regional governor Ihor Taburets said.
An elderly woman has been killed and two others wounded in Russian strikes in Ukraine's Zaporizhia region, Governor Ivan Fedorov said Thursday.
Russian forces have shelled the region 161 times in the past 24 hours, damaging infrastructure facilities and residential buildings, it said in a Telegram message.
'Victory Plan'
Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Wednesday that his “Victory Plan,” aimed at bringing peace to his country by keeping it strong and avoiding all “frozen conflicts,” was now complete after many consultations.
Zelenskyy pledged last month to present his plan to US President Joe Biden, presumably next week when he attends sessions of the UN Security Council and General Assembly.
While offering daily updates on the plan's preparation, Zelenskyy has given few clues about its content, indicating only that its aim is to create terms acceptable to Ukraine.
Zelenskyy said in his evening video address that there was no alternative to peace, “neither freezing the war nor any other manipulation that simply postpones Russian aggression to another stage.”
