The Yale School of Public Health’s Humanitarian Research Lab, with research support from the Ukraine Digital Verification Lab at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, has verified 66 high confidence instances of conflict-related damage to Ukraine’s power generation and transmission infrastructure according to the methodology in this report. This report identifies a further 157 incidents of damage for a total of 223 identified incidents across 23 oblasts from 1 October 2022 to 30 April 2023.
128 of 216 spatially located incidents of damage occurred in oblasts that did not have a frontline running through them during the analysis timeframe.
The geospatial and temporal distributions of these incidents, in conjunction with statements on attacks from public officials and state-sponsored media in Russia, appear consistent with a widespread and systematic effort to cripple vital power generation and transmission infrastructure across Ukraine. Incidents are distributed across an overwhelming majority of Ukraine’s oblasts, including areas well removed from the frontlines of fighting.
This wide geospatial distribution is suggestive of an effort to cripple Ukraine’s energy infrastructure in a manner that is not clearly intended to achieve a direct and concrete military advantage in every instance. The wide geospatial distribution points to possible violations of the international humanitarian principles of distinction and proportionality, as well as the obligation to take all feasible precaution to minimize injury to civilians and damage to civilian objects.
Russia’s officials, including President Vladimir Putin, have also stated on multiple occasions that Russia is deliberately targeting Ukraine’s energy infrastructure. While Yale HRL does not make any definitive determinations on the legality of the individual incidents of damage logged in this analysis, these statements, together with the aggregate data, indicate that Russia’s attacks on Ukraine’s power generation and transmission infrastructure may constitute deliberate targeting that is inconsistent with international humanitarian law.