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Ukraine: Russian attacks on energy terrorize population as winter starts; could trigger major ‘crisis within crisis’

The UN’s top aid official in Ukraine expressed concern on Friday about “continuous attacks” on energy production sites and distribution facilities.

The heavy humanitarian and psychological toll of these strikes is compounded by the expectation that this year’s winter will be much colder than last year’s, and that the destruction of energy infrastructure may outpace the rate of recovery.

“We are very worried about people living in high-rise buildings in cities near the front line – that could turn into a major crisis,” Matthias Schmale, the UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in Ukraine, told reporters in Geneva.

Mr. Schmale’s comments came a day after a massive Russian attack across Ukraine reportedly targeted critical energy infrastructure in civilian areas.

With 705 munitions reportedly deployed the barrage was among the largest since Russia’s full-scale invasion began in 2022.

If people in frontline cities like Zaporizhzhia, Kharkiv or Dnipro in high-rise apartment buildings are “stuck without electricity or safe water for days on end” during a harsh winter, Mr. Schmale explained, then “there is no way that with the available resources we would be able to respond to a major crisis within a crisis.”

“Destroying energy production and distribution capacity as winter starts clearly impacts the civilian population and is a form of terror,” Mr. Schmale insisted. “The continued strikes throughout the country also give a sense of nowhere is safe… in my almost one and a half years there, [I] feel and sense that the mental health impact of this war is increasing,” he added.

“This is increasingly a technological war, a drone war,” the UN official said, highlighting that drones were responsible for one third of all recorded civilian casualties in 2025. This year has seen a 30 per cent overall increase in civilian deaths compared with 2024.

Civilian casualties of Thursday’s attack included a seven-year-old girl who died in the hospital following a strike in the central region of Vinnytsia. Earlier this week an attack severely damaged a children’s hospital in Kherson City, injuring a child and health workers.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has recorded 364 attacks impacting healthcare facilities in Ukraine between January and October 2025.

Mr. Schmale recounted his own recent experience, which he described as a “poignant moment,” visiting a kindergarten in Kharkiv right after it had been struck by three missiles.

“I just imagined as a parent, you drop your children in the morning at a kindergarten, you then get called back two and a half hours later… to pick up your traumatized children who've just experienced three missiles hitting their kindergarten,” he said.

“This notion of safety for vulnerable people and children is really being violated all the time.”

Turning to the situation in the Ukrainian territories occupied by the Russian Federation, the UN humanitarian coordinator said that the longer the war goes on for, “the more we are at risk of forgetting the vulnerable people” in those areas.

According to estimates “about a million people are vulnerable in the so-called temporarily occupied territories,” he said.

Mr. Schmale also warned of the “attacks on fundamental rights” which are ongoing there, “including attacks on citizenship.”

“My understanding is that the occupying forces are insisting that Ukrainians are now registering for Russian documents in the occupied territories, and if they don't do so, they will be considered illegal and are subject to either deportation or arrest,” he said.

The UN official expressed further concern over dwindling funds for the Ukraine humanitarian response, describing a “downward trend.”

“In 2022, we had over $4 billion for humanitarian work in Ukraine. [In] 2023, it was still $2.6 [billion]. Last year, remarkably, 2024, with everything else going on in the world, still $2.2 [billion],” he said.

“This year we stand at $1.1 [billion], so far half of what we got last year and with two months to go” till the end of 2025, he added.

“The impact that we're beginning to see is in particular on our capacity to support the most vulnerable,” he warned, urging the international community not to forget Ukraine.

Humanitarians are all the more concerned as there seems to be no end in sight to the conflict.

“On the ground in Kyiv and in my extensive travels to frontline areas, this feels increasingly like a protracted war,” Mr. Schmale remarked. “We have been through phases this year where there was cautious optimism that it might end… right now on the ground, it doesn't feel at all like it's ending anytime soon,” he said.

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