Ukraine strikes with surgical precision. “They will understand what the price will be.”
Kyiv sends a clear signal: wants to cause power outages in western and southern Russia. To this end, Ukrainian drone forces have launched dozens of attacks on Russia's energy grid.
In the latest attack, carried out on the night of November 4-5, operators of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (SZU) sent approximately 10-20 unmanned kamikaze drones that traveled through hundreds of kilometers of Russian airspace to hit the Vlodimirovskaya high-voltage station.
This is the second attack on the same station in a week. The Ukrainian drones reached their destination practically without any problems.
Vladimirovskaya station is key energy point: transmits electricity from a hydroelectric power plant on the Volga, from a gas power plant in Kostroma and from a nuclear power plant in Kalinin to the cities of Vladimir and Ivanovo (at least 750,000 inhabitants in total). It is also an important source of power for the power grid of the Moscow metropolitan area.
The footage from the attack identified an aircraft with a silhouette similar to a Ukrainian kamikaze drone [z napędem śmigłowym] type of Beaver who dives into the place of an already burning fire. Some districts of the city were left without electricity.
To reach its target, the drone had to fly at least 600 km in Russian airspace.
Total energy war
Elsewhere in central Russia, near the Orlov Thermal Power Plant in the Kirov Oblast, on the night of November 4-5, Ukrainian turbojet drones struck ground targets in a second long-range airstrike.
The sound of a turbojet engine can be heard in social media footage [podobnego do tych stosowanych w ukraińskich pociskach-dronach typu Piekło lub Flamingo]followed by strong explosions. Videos and photos show three fire spots, two of which are at least 50 m high.
The dual attacks were the latest in a series of attacks carried out by Ukraine's Unmanned Systems Forces in recent weeks [SSB SZU]. Waves of Ukrainian drones, numbering 50-60 kamikaze units, struck a main substation in the Russian-occupied Donetsk region on the night of November 3-4, causing a power outage in a territory comparable in size to Denmark.
The power outage in Donetsk hit military production, Russian army and aviation units, as well as civilian infrastructure.
On the same night in the Russian Federation, Ukrainian drones attacked and set fire to three large electrical substations:
- Frolovo station in the Volgograd Oblast – 450 km from the Russian-Ukrainian border,
- Rylsk substation in the Kursk region – 25 km from the border,
- Kstovo station in the Nizhny Novgorod region — 750 km from the border.
Fires and power outages were reported in nearby cities.
Also on the night of November 3-4, another Ukrainian drone formation reached and set fire to a petroleum products processing plant in Bashkortostan, approximately 1,300 km into Russia.
According to Kyiv Post data, since October 13, Ukrainian planners have carried out at least 29 separate attacks directly targeting the energy network infrastructure of Russia or the occupied territories of Ukraine. These attacks were almost always aimed at hitting flammable elements of the transformer station.
In the same period Kyiv carried out a total of 76 attacksmost of which targeted Russia's ability to process or export oil and gas products.
For comparison, in August and September, Ukrainians attacked only about 10 percent of the Russian energy network. cases. Previously, refineries, military production or military units dominated. Since Ukraine launched a strategic drone and missile bombing campaign against Kremlin assets at the end of July, at least 146 long-range attacks have been carried out deep into Russia.
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“We would like there to be no war, but the Russians don't want that”
The Kremlin's strategy since October 2022 has been to defeat Ukraine by bombing the civilian population – the goal was to break the will of Ukrainians to resist, so that the inhabitants were left without water, electricity and heat. Cities such as Kiev, Poltava, Chernihiv, Kharkov, Odessa and Dnipro experienced blackouts.
If hundreds of Russian missiles once attacked our entire energy infrastructure, now the Russians are attacking specific targets. They destroy transmission stations, heating infrastructure and kill the people who operate them
– Vitaliy Zaychenko, the head of the Ukrainian distribution company UkrEnergo, emphasized on October 17 in a comment for the ICTV television channel.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told voters and the Kremlin in a video published on October 6: “Russians don't understand now… (but) they will understand what the price will be.” Ukraine responds by attacking military targets and energy facilities. We would like not to do this. We would like there to be no war, but the Russians don't want that.
Over the past three weeks, the brunt of Ukrainian attacks has focused on high-power transmission hubs in western and central Russia — especially in regions bordering Ukraine. Industrial regions south of Moscow and the Volga basin were also attacked.
In most cases, the attacks caused fires and partial power cuts to surrounding regions, with full restoration of power within 24-48 hours.
The pace of Ukrainian attacks on oil refineries and military targets continues to increase. According to data collected by Kyiv Post, the total the number of attacks deep into Russia at the moment is 146.
