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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has accused Russia of seeking to sow “chaos” across Ukraine by intensifying attacks on the nation’s energy and railway infrastructure.
His comments, published on Thursday, come amid a renewed wave of Russian air strikes that have severely damaged key facilities.
Speaking to journalists, including AFP, in Kyiv on Wednesday, Zelensky said, “Russia’s task is to create chaos and apply psychological pressure on the population through strikes on energy facilities and railways.”
He added that Moscow aimed to weaken public morale and disrupt daily life as winter approaches.
Zelensky announced that he would send his prime minister and a senior sanctions adviser to the United States next week for talks focused on air defence, energy cooperation, sanctions, negotiations with Russia, and the use of frozen Russian assets.
Russia’s latest bombardments resemble previous winter campaigns in 2022, 2023 and 2024, which left millions of Ukrainians without power or heating for extended periods.
The most recent strikes have targeted the southern Black Sea region of Odesa, where both energy infrastructure and port facilities suffered damage.
According to Zelensky, Ukraine’s gas infrastructure is already under “heavy pressure” from the renewed attacks, and further strikes could force the country to increase energy imports.
Meanwhile, Ukraine has stepped up its own drone and missile operations inside Russia. Zelensky claimed these strikes were yielding “results”, noting that they had significantly disrupted fuel production in Russia.
“We believe that they’ve lost up to 20 per cent of their gasoline supply – directly as a result of our strikes,” he said, adding that Russia has since boosted imports from China and Belarus to compensate.
Ukraine recently struck a power plant in Russia’s Belgorod region, triggering widespread outages.
The Ukrainian military also confirmed on Thursday that it had targeted energy facilities, including a gas processing plant, in the Volgograd region of southern Russia.
