Leaked Russian plan targets 60 Ukrainian energy sites, with 90% of power in Kyiv, Kharkiv and Odesa
A document dated August 2026 that Ukrainian sources obtained, according to Radio Swoboda, names 60 energy facilities and the weapons Russia could use against them. Kyiv meanwhile tells residents to keep food stocks for at least three days as power cuts are expected.
The leaked document
According to Onet, which cites Radio Swoboda, a secret Russian document dated August 2026 reached Ukrainian sources and has since leaked to the media. The document names 60 key energy targets in Ukraine and the types of weapons Russia could use against them, and it reportedly calculates how many drones and what kind of ammunition each installation would require. Its stated aim is to cut power and heating to civilians. For Kyiv, Kharkiv and Odesa, the document says Russia wants to switch off 90% of the electricity supply. Other planned targets include Dnipro, Zaporizhzhia, Mykolaiv, Kherson, Poltava, Chernihiv, Kryvyi Rih, Cherkasy, Kropyvnytskyi, Lviv, Vinnytsia and Ivano-Frankivsk.
- Russia begins destroying relatively small transformers that supply housing estates, hospitals and critical businesses, according to Suchomłyn
- Date of the secret Russian document listing 60 Ukrainian energy targets
- Overnight attack on Kharkiv, night of 12 to 13 October, kills three people and injures several dozen
Expert assessment and warnings
Colonel Markus Reisner, a military expert quoted by Bild, called the figures 'completely realistic' and said the planning follows a typical military procedure for assigning weapon types to targets. He cautioned that Ukrainian air defence and jamming can intercept part of the weapons, so the planned number does not equal the real number of hits. He nonetheless warned that further strikes would have serious effects and said many Ukrainian cities already operate in survival mode. Reisner said that every further destroyed facility, especially with winter approaching, is a catastrophe. Ukraine's energy minister Denys Shmyhal said 80% of the country's energy infrastructure has already been damaged or destroyed.
- Kyiv
- 90 %
- Kharkiv
- 90 %
- Odesa
- 90 %
Kyiv prepares for winter
Kyiv authorities advise residents to keep enough food for at least three days, because power cuts are expected. Residents are stockpiling drinking and technical water, canned meat, groats, pasta and gas for camping stoves, according to PAP. In the Obolon district, a resident named Artem said about 100 litres of water for flushing the toilet has been stored under the bed since the start of the war, and drinking water is collected from a spring. Stepan, interviewed by PAP in an electrical equipment shop, has just ordered an inverter with a battery that switches the supply automatically when the grid fails. It cost about 65,000 hryvnia (more than 5,600 zloty, according to PAP), and he expects to wait about a month for an installer because specialists are in short supply. He said that once installed it should run for up to 20 hours without power, and he wants lights, a fridge, a washing machine and a router to keep working.
Kharkiv attack and Suchomłyn's outlook
In an overnight attack on Kharkiv, from Monday to Tuesday, 12 to 13 October, three people were killed. Explosions caused fires in residential buildings and in areas inhabited by civilians, and one projectile partly collapsed a residential building. Several dozen people were injured. Serhij Suchomłyn, until recently head of the State Agency for Restoration and Infrastructure Development, told Ukrainska Pravda that forecasts can only draw on past experience.
In such forecasts we can rely only on previous experience: last year Russia did not yet use such a large number of jet-powered Shahed drones and until autumn practically did not attack civilian infrastructure.
He said that in September 2025 Russia began destroying relatively small transformers that supply housing estates, hospitals and critical businesses. He noted that the Kherson, Kharkiv and Zaporizhzhia oblasts and Kharkiv city survived the winter of 2025-26 despite constant shelling. In Sumy, a large combined heat and power plant supplying part of the city was attacked with dozens of guided aerial bombs and Shahed drones, but the city held. He called winter preparations positive and said that if approved resilience programmes are carried out, Ukraine will get through the next heating season without districts left without heating or exposed to frost.
