Attacks against Ukraine’s energy infrastructure and update on the human rights situation in Ukraine, 1 December 2025 – 31 May 2026
Executive summary
1. This update on the human rights situation in Ukraine covers the period from 1 December 2025 to 31 May 2026.
2. Russian armed forces systematically and repeatedly targeted energy facilities across Ukraine throughout the 2025-2026 winter months, often using hundreds of weapons in coordinated attacks. These attacks damaged and destroyed energy generation, transmission and distribution facilities, which were already significantly degraded from previous attacks.
3. Russian attacks on transmission and distribution facilities triggered emergency electricity outages, often affecting millions of civilians across the country. In addition, damage to Ukraine’s power plants significantly reduced the country’s capacity to generate electricity. As electricity demand increased when temperatures dropped with the onset of winter, Ukraine suffered a large electricity deficit. The deficit forced Ukrainian authorities to impose scheduled rolling electricity cuts nationwide, leaving civilians with electricity for only a couple of hours per day in periods.
4. The 2025-2026 winter attacks also systematically and repeatedly targeted centralized heating infrastructure, which supplies heating and hot water to most Ukrainian urban households. The attacks disrupted heating to hundreds of thousands of civilians, leaving many without heating and hot water for weeks as temperatures fell below -20°C in the coldest winter in Ukraine since 2010.
5. The electricity and heating outages affected all aspects of civilian life across the country. Indoor temperatures plummeted to levels far below what the World Health Organization recommends as safe. Outages cut water supply in multi-story buildings, disrupted healthcare, closed schools, and drove some people to leave their homes. Persons in situations of vulnerability, including older persons, persons with disabilities, and women, suffered disproportionate harm.
6. Ukrainian armed forces also attacked electricity and heating infrastructure in the Belgorod region of the Russian Federation. There were reports that the attacks caused regional electricity and heating outages.
7. The attacks on energy infrastructure appear to have violated fundamental principles of international humanitarian law on the conduct of hostilities.
8. In this period, conflict-related hostilities caused more civilian deaths and injuries than in the same period of any year since the full-scale invasion, except 2022, continuing a trend of steadily rising civilian casualties. The Russian Federation’s large-scale use long-range weapons accounted for much of the increase. The increase in attacks with short-range drones along the frontline was the second main factor, which also hampered humanitarian assistance and evacuations and caused additional displacement.
9. The vast majority of civilians were killed and injured in territory controlled by the Government of Ukraine. The extensive use of short-range drones prevented evacuations and the delivery of basic goods in communities near the frontlines, including in territory occupied by the Russian Federation.
10. Russian armed forces executed at least 16 captured Ukrainian prisoners of war (POW) from mid-November to January. Nearly all released Ukrainian POWs interviewed by OHCHR described having been subjected to torture or other ill-treatment during their captivity, although several noted that treatment and conditions had gradually improved since late 2024. As before, around half of Russian POWs interviewed described torture or other ill-treatment at the initial stages of their captivity by Ukraine.
11. In occupied territory, Russian authorities continued to severely restrict freedom of expression, forcibly conscript protected persons into the Russian armed forces, and deny children access to a Ukrainian education.
