Russian attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure a war crime: UN

UN commission notes Russian weaponisation of cold in nearly five years of attacks on heating plants and power lines.

Russia’s persistent attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure constitute war crimes as they weaponise the cold of winter, a United Nations commission has said.

The Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine laid out in a report submitted to the UN General Assembly on Monday years of Russian attacks on heating plants, power lines, gas facilities and other infrastructure since the autumn of 2022.

The report was issued as Russia has stepped up its attacks on such civilian targets. Moscow has sought every year since its full-scale invasion in February 2022 to inflict suffering on Ukrainian citizens with an apparent ambition of draining the country’s will and ability to continue to defend its territory.

The commission said it has investigated the impact on civilians of large-scale attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure and their cumulative effect since 2022.

“The frequency, intensity and geographic range of systematic waves of attacks with hundreds of drones and missiles at a time have increased over the years and inflicted significant damage to Ukraine’s energy sector,” the report noted.

In particular, the report focused on the Russian attacks during the severe winter of 2025–2026, when temperatures dropped to minus 21 degrees Celsius (-5.8 degrees Fahrenheit). That left millions of people in Ukraine facing lengthy outages of heating, electricity, water and gas, and forced them to cope with intolerable living conditions, it said.

The commission assessed that the Russian commanders ordering the attacks knew that the heating facilities they targeted were indispensable to the civilian population.

“Russian authorities have made official declarations concerning further attacks and referred to a plan to carry them out. The commission concluded that they committed war crimes of intentionally directing attacks against civilian objects,” the report concluded.

Erik Mose, chair of the commission, noted that as the cold season approaches, “the attacks have intensified once again, raising serious concerns about the threats to civilians’ lives and health”.

Russia and Ukraine have continued their daily attacks on one another as winter approaches, with little indication that a ceasefire might be in sight.

On Monday, a Russian strike on Ukraine’s southeastern city of Zaporizhzhia injured four people overnight, regional governor Mykhailo Semikin said on Telegram.

The Ministry of Defence in Moscow accused Ukraine of repeatedly striking the Russian-controlled town of Oleshky in southern Ukraine ahead of a planned local ceasefire this week.

The UN commission, which was set up by the Human Rights Council, in its report also accused Moscow of human trafficking in connection with the recruitment of foreign fighters into the Russian armed forces “in violation of international human rights law”.

“The majority of those recruited have been killed, went missing, while others have also been injured or captured,” the report read.

For instance, there have been numerous reports during the nearly five-year war of men from India having been duped into fighting on the front lines.