Amnesty Warns of Humanitarian Crisis as Russia Targets Energy Grid

Scott Edwards, director of Amnesty’s Crisis Response Program, characterized the strikes as a flagrant violation of international humanitarian law. Under global statutes, electricity and heating installations are protected civilian objects unless they serve a direct military purpose. Even then, combatants are required to adhere to strict principles of proportionality and precaution. Amnesty maintains that intentionally targeting infrastructure to cause civilian suffering constitutes a war crime.

Data from the United Nations underscores the human cost of these tactics. Last winter, at least 423 attacks on electricity infrastructure and 74 strikes on heating facilities triggered widespread outages and left millions without heat as temperatures plummeted below -20°C. These conditions crippled healthcare and education while disproportionately endangering the elderly, people with disabilities, and families with children.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy confirmed that recent overnight strikes hit critical substations and transformers across the Dnipro, Vinnytsia, Zhytomyr, and Khmelnytskyi regions. He noted that despite the efforts of repair crews, hundreds of thousands of families remain without power. In the past week alone, Moscow has deployed nearly 2,000 attack drones and over 1,500 guided aerial bombs against Ukrainian targets. Zelenskyy continues to appeal to international partners for additional ballistic missile interceptors to bolster the country's defenses.