SHOSTKA: As the lights went out in her hometown, 40-year-old Zinaida Kot could not help but think about her next dialysis treatment for kidney disease. Without electricity, the machine that keeps her alive stops working.
Kot is among millions of Ukrainians who are bracing for another winter of power cuts and possibly blackouts as Russia renewed its campaign of attacks on the country’s energy grid. Analysts and officials say that this year Moscow has shifted tactics, targeting specific regions and gas infrastructure.
In some regions — mostly those closer to the front line in the east — the season of buzzing generators has started, as well as long hours of darkness with no power or water. People are once again pulling out small power stations, charging numerous power banks, and storing bottles of water in their bathrooms.
The attacks have grown more effective as Russia launches hundreds of drones, some equipped with cameras that improve targeting, overwhelming air defenses — especially in regions where protection is weaker.
The consequences are already reshaping daily life — especially for those whose survival depends on electricity. For Zinaida Kot, who has been on dialysis for seven years, this is far worse than mere discomfort.
“It is bad. We really worry when there is no electricity,” she said from her hospital bed, connected to a dialysis machine powered by a generator that staff call “not reliable enough.”
“If there’s no treatment, I would die. I would not exist”
Blackout in Shostka
In early October, a Russian strike left the small northern town of Shostka — with a prewar population of nearly 72,000 — without electricity, water, or gas. The town lies just 50 kilometers (31 miles) from the front line in northern Sumy region. Gas service was later restored, and electricity returned for only a few hours each day.
“The situation is challenging,” said Mykola Noha, the mayor of Shostka. Electricity and water are now supplied on a schedule, available for a few hours each day. “And it really worries the residents as we can’t predict power cuts. We fix something and it gets destroyed again. This is our situation.”
Shostka hums with the low growl of generators on rain-dark asphalt, blanketed in yellow leaves. They power cafes, shops, residential buildings, and hospitals. Across town, so-called “invincibility points” offer residents a place to charge devices, warm up, and even rest on cots provided.
The hardest days, locals say, were when there was no gas — no heat or way to cook — and people made meals over open fires in the streets.
At the local hospital, where all stoves are electric, staff built a simple wood-burning oven during the early days of Russia’s invasion, in 2022, when the town came close to occupation. And now it helps to feed at least 180 patients, said Svitlana Zakotei, 57, a nurse who oversees the patients’ meals.
The hospital has spent three weeks running on generators — a costly lifeline that burns half a ton of fuel a day, about 250,000 hryvnias ($5,973) a week, said the hospital’s chief, Oleh Shtohryn. That’s nearly as much as its usual monthly electricity bill.
Power is rationed. In the dialysis ward, lights stay dim so electricity can feed the machines that keep patients alive. One of the eight units burned out because of the blackout — a costly loss the hospital could not afford to replace soon. Still, 23 patients come daily for hourslong treatment.
Russia has new strategy to bomb the energy sites
The crisis in Shostka reflects Russia’s shifting strategy. In 2022–2023, Moscow launched waves of missiles and drones across the country to destabilize Ukraine’s national grid. This year, it is striking region by region.
The recent pattern shows heavier attacks on the Chernihiv, Sumy, and Poltava regions, while Kharkiv, Odesa, Mykolaiv, and Dnipro face less frequent but still regular strikes.
“They’ve had no success hitting the national infrastructure because it’s now much better protected and operators know how to respond,” said Oleksandr Kharchenko, director of the Energy Research Center. “So they’ve decided to refocus and change tactics.”
Front-line regions within about 120 kilometers of combat are the most vulnerable, he said. “These are attacks on civilians who have nothing to do with the war.”
And for Ukrainian energy crews, that means fixing the same lines and stations again and again — from transmission towers to thermal plants — while enduring outages at home.
“But it’s our job. Who else would do it? Nobody else would,” said Bohdan Bilous, an electrical technician. “I want to be optimistic and prepared for any situation, but the reality is extremely cruel right now.”
Svitlana Kalysh, spokeswoman for the regional energy company in Sumy region, said proximity to the front line makes each repair crew a target. “They’re getting better at knowing how to attack,” she said of the Russians. “The real challenge is the complexity (of damage) — no source to draw (electricity) from, no way to transmit, no capacity to distribute,” she said.
Bracing for the upcoming winter
At a switchyard in the Chernihiv region, all seems calm — a woman tends her cabbage patch nearby — but residents are used to the explosions which intensify each year as winter nears.
The switchyard looks like a museum of nearly four years of strikes. Along the main road lined with towering pylons, a crater in the asphalt marks one of the first attacks in 2022.
The latest strike, on Oct. 4, was far more precise and devastating. In the roof of the transformer building, there’s one neat hole near the center, and another in the wall — scars left by Shahed drones.
Sandbags around the building absorbed some shock waves but couldn’t stop a direct hit. Inside, the station is cold and dark but still operating at half capacity. Thousands of homes across Chernihiv remain without steady power.
Workers are already trying to repair the damage, but even under ideal conditions — few air raids, no new strikes — it will take weeks. Each time an alert sounds, crews must leave their posts.
“If you look at this year, it’s one of the hardest,” said Serhii Pereverza, deputy director of Chernihivoblenergo. “We hope for the best and think about alternative ways to supply our customers.”
Kharchenko noted that last year Russia lacked the capacity to launch 500 or 600 drones at once, and the smaller attacks it could mount were largely ineffective.
But this year even when several air-defense points and mobile units surround a facility, the Russians simply overwhelm them — sending about six drones at each defensive position and another 10 directly at the target.
“This year they’ve roughly tripled the scale,” he said. “They’re breaking through individual sites by sheer volume and power.”
Ukrainians brace for another winter of power cuts as Russia shifts tactics
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Ukrainians brace for another winter of power cuts as Russia shifts tactics
- Analysts and officials say that this year Moscow has shifted tactics, targeting specific regions and gas infrastructure
- People are once again pulling out small power stations, charging numerous power banks, and storing bottles of water in their bathrooms
With Iran war exit elusive, Trump aides vie to affect outcome
- Aides debate when and how to declare victory even as the conflict spreads across the Middle East
- In taking America to war, US President Donald Trump offered little explanation
WASHINGTON: A complex tug-of-war inside the White House is driving US President Donald Trump’s shifting public statements on the course of the Iran war, as aides debate when and how to declare victory even as the conflict spreads across the Middle East.
Some officials and advisers are warning Trump that surging gasoline prices could exact a political cost from the US-Israeli attacks on Iran, while some hawks are pressing the president to maintain the offensive against the Islamic Republic, according to interviews with a Trump adviser and others close to the deliberations.
Their observations to Reuters offer a previously unreported glimpse inside White House decision-making as it adjusts its approach to the biggest US military operation since the 2003 Iraq war.
Shifting messages, various internal viewpoints
The behind-the-scenes maneuvering underscores the high stakes Trump, who returned to office last year promising to avoid “stupid” military interventions, faces nearly two weeks after plunging the nation into a war that has rattled global financial markets and disrupted the international oil trade.
The jockeying for Trump’s ear is a feature of his presidency, but this time the consequences are a matter of war and peace in one of the world’s most volatile and economically critical regions.
Shifting from the sweeping goals he framed in launching the war on February 28, Trump in recent days has emphasized that he views the conflict as a limited campaign whose objectives have mostly been met.
But the message remains unclear to many, including the energy markets, which have lurched in both directions in response to Trump’s statements.
He told a campaign-style rally in Kentucky on Wednesday that “we won” the war, then abruptly pivoted: “We don’t want to leave early, do we? We’ve got to finish the job.”
Economic advisers and officials, including from the Treasury Department and the National Economic Council, have warned Trump that an oil shock and rising gasoline prices could quickly erode domestic support for the war, said the adviser and two others close to the deliberations, speaking on the condition of anonymity to disclose internal discussions.
Political advisers, including Chief of Staff Susie Wiles and deputy chief James Blair, are making similar arguments, focusing on the political fallout from higher gas prices and urging Trump to define victory narrowly and signal the operation is limited and nearly finished, the sources said.
Pushing in the other direction are hawkish voices urging Trump to sustain military pressure on Iran, including Republican lawmakers such as US Senators Lindsey Graham and Tom Cotton, and media commentators such as Mark Levin, according to people familiar with the matter.
They argue the US must prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon and respond forcefully to attacks on American troops and shipping.
A third force comes from Trump’s populist base and figures such as strategist Steve Bannon and right-wing television personality Tucker Carlson, who have been pressing him and his top aides to avoid getting dragged into another prolonged Middle East conflict.
“He is allowing the hawks to believe the campaign continues, wants markets to believe the war might end soon and his base to believe escalation will be limited,” the Trump adviser said.
Asked for comment, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement: “This story is based on gossip and speculation from anonymous sources who aren’t even in the room for any discussions with President Trump.
“The President is known for being a good listener and seeking the opinions of many people, but ultimately everyone knows he’s the final decision maker and his own best messenger,” she said. “The President’s entire team is focused on ensuring the objectives of Operation Epic Fury are fully achieved.”
Other people named for their roles in the deliberations did not immediately respond to Reuters’ questions.
Looking for an exit
In taking America to war, Trump offered little explanation, and the administration’s stated war aims have ranged from thwarting an imminent attack by Iran to crippling its nuclear program to replacing its government.
As he seeks an exit from an unpopular conflict, Trump is trying to juggle competing narratives that some critics say have complicated an already difficult situation, with Iran defiant despite the devastating US-Israeli air assault.
Top political aides and economic advisers, whose warnings before the war of the potential economic shock were largely ignored, appear to have played a major role in pushing Trump’s efforts this week to reassure skittish markets and contain rising oil and gas prices.
His public shift to downplaying the war’s impact, describing it as a “short-term excursion,” and his insistence that gas price hikes would be short-lived appeared aimed at calming fears of an open-ended conflict.
Some top aides have advised him to work toward a conclusion to the conflict that he can call a triumph, at least militarily, the sources said, even if much of the Iranian leadership survives, along with remnants of a nuclear program that the campaign was meant to target.
Wave after wave of US and Israeli air strikes have killed a number of top Iranian leaders among some 2,000 people overall – some as far away as Lebanon – devastated its ballistic missile arsenal, sunk much of its navy and degraded its ability to support armed proxies around the Middle East.
But the military achievements have been seriously undercut by Iran’s stepped-up attacks on oil tankers and transport facilities in the Gulf, driving up oil prices.
Trump has said he will decide when to end the campaign. He and his aides say they are far ahead of the four- to six-week timeframe Trump initially announced.
The shifting reasons for launching the conflict, which has spilled over into more than half a dozen other countries, have only made it more difficult to predict what comes next.
For their part, Iran’s rulers will claim victory, analysts say, for simply surviving the US-Israeli onslaught, especially after demonstrating their ability to fight back and inflict damage on Israel, the US and its allies.
Venezuela miscalculation
Critical to the war’s final trajectory will be the Strait of Hormuz. A fifth of the world’s oil shipments, which normally traverses the narrow waterway, has come to a near-standstill. Iran in recent days has struck tankers in Iraqi waters and other ships near the strait, and the new Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei has vowed to keep it shut.
If Iran’s stranglehold on the waterway pushes US gas prices high enough, that could increase political pressure on Trump to end the military campaign to help his Republican Party, which is defending narrow majorities in Congress in November’s midterm elections.
Trump has recently refrained from pushing the idea that the war seeks to topple the government in Tehran. US intelligence indicates that Iran’s leadership is not at risk of collapse anytime soon, Reuters reported on Wednesday.
At least some of the confusion over the war’s trajectory appears rooted in the quick US military success in Venezuela.
Since the start of the war, some aides have struggled to convince Trump that the Iran campaign was unlikely to unfold in the same way as the January 3 Venezuela raid that captured President Nicolas Maduro, according to another source familiar with the administration’s thinking.
That operation opened the way for Trump to coerce former Maduro loyalists into giving him considerable sway over the country’s vast oil reserves – without requiring extended US military action.
Iran, by contrast, has proved a much tougher, better-armed foe with an entrenched clerical and security establishment.
Experts have rejected claims by Trump aides that Iran had been within weeks of being able to produce a nuclear weapon, despite the president’s insistence in June that US-Israeli bombing had “obliterated” its nuclear program.
Most of Iran’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium is believed to have been buried by the June strikes, meaning the material potentially could be retrieved and purified to bomb grade. Iran has always denied seeking nuclear weapons.
If the war drags on, American casualties mount and the economic costs multiply, some analysts say it could erode backing from Trump’s political base. But despite criticism from some supporters opposed to military interventions, members of his “Make America Great Again” movement have so far largely stayed with him on Iran.
“The MAGA base is going to give the president wiggle room,” said Republican strategist Ford O’Connell.
