Russia has simply stepped up its electrical energy warfare, by way of making its greatest use of ballistic missiles in a single night time of strikes on {the electrical} grid, centered on thermal energy technology and knocking out all of these stations, plunging all of Ukraine’s main cities into darkness. Russia has additionally simply captured the important thing metropolis of Pokvrosk a critically essential logistical hub. Per some accounts, Putin has ordered the cauldron to be closed, reportedly solely the second time because the seize of Mariupol. As a matter of observe, Russia has usually as an alternative created massive encirclements however left an avenue out. That has labored notably effectively in Ukraine give Zelensky’s predictable orders to carry territory in any respect price. Ukraine retains feeding males and materials right into a Russian maw.
Pokvrosk has fallen .🇧🇬https://t.co/IqV9Sdknoh
— Sol Feiz (@Feiozol) November 7, 2025
See Historical past Legends from a number of days in the past for extra on the autumn of Pokvrosk. Final week, Simplicius gave an outline of the battlefront decay:
Essentially the most revealing reality about Russia’s sudden breakthroughs on each entrance is that these don’t seem like coming on the expense of main mechanized assaults with big losses as a few of Russia’s earlier official ‘offensives’ had completed. Certain, there have been a string of mechanized assaults we’ve coated prior to now couple weeks, however these have largely come at secondary fronts; as an illustration, western Zaporozhye, round Orekhove, in Shakhove, north of Pokrovsk, and many others.
The primary fronts mentioned earlier all appear to be collapsing to the identical outdated trickle and ‘thousand cuts’ techniques. Most significantly what this implies is that Russia doesn’t seem like paying an exorbitant price in casualties and gear for these latest successes, apart from expendables like bikes, civilian vehicles, bukhankas, and many others.
If that is really the case, this bodes extraordinarily badly for the AFU. It might imply a degree of no return has been reached the place Russia now not has to expend outsize sources for these accumulating breakthroughs, which implies they are going to solely proceed unabated.
We don’t know for sure if that is so; as an illustration, the truth that this sudden collapse of the AFU has corresponded exactly to the appearance of rasputitsa and different inclement winter-like situations may imply this has extra to do with Russia’s latest surge. However as I’ve acknowledged many occasions earlier than, Russia has all the time had its greatest campaigns in the course of the winter, whereby the Bakhmut and Avdeevka operations had been carried out.
Nevertheless, Russia’s trump card has been and stays its skill to destroy or cripple Ukraine’s energy provides. The beginning of Dima’s video exhibits the day after affect of the most recent electrical energy assaults….which in loads of circumstances will prolong past that:
The Guardian has a day-later account attempting to place a courageous face on the ability system strikes:
Energy will likely be lower for between eight and 16 hours throughout most areas of Ukraine on Sunday, state transmission system operator Ukrenergo has mentioned, after Russian assaults focusing on vitality infrastructure lowered the nation’s producing capability to “zero”….
Ukrenergo has mentioned repairs had been carried out and vitality sourcing diverted.
Whereas the state of affairs had considerably stabilised, areas together with Kyiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Donetsk, Kharkiv, Poltava, Chernihiv and Sumy may proceed to expertise common energy cuts, Ukraine’s vitality minister mentioned on Saturday night time…
Consultants have mentioned the strikes on vitality infrastructure put Ukraine prone to heating outages earlier than winter. Russia has focused the ability and heating grid all through its virtually four-year invasion, destroying a big a part of the important thing civilian infrastructure.
This weekend’s assault was the ninth huge assault on gasoline infrastructure since early October, Ukraine’s vitality firm Naftogaz mentioned.
Kyiv’s Faculty of Economics estimated in a report that the assaults have shut down half of Ukraine’s pure gasoline manufacturing.
Ukraine’s high vitality professional, Oleksandr Kharchenko, informed a media briefing Wednesday that if Kyiv’s two energy and heating vegetation went offline for greater than three days when temperatures fall beneath minus 10C, the capital would face a “technological catastrophe”.
The article didn’t clarify what “technological catastrophe” would quantity to. However our understanding is the municipal water provide depend upon electrical energy each to maintain pipes from freezing and for pumping. Educated readers may also be capable to describe the dangers to the sewage system.
And Ukraine officers had been warning even earlier than this massive assault that residents of huge cities like Kiev who depend upon electrical energy for heating ought to make backup plans to decamp to spots with furnaces. From Simpilcius on November 2:
On the similar time, Russia’s strikes on Ukraine’s energy grid have been probably the most decided they’ve ever been, with many noting ‘uncommon’ habits corresponding to doing double-taps on restore crews and launching large drone swarms on every facility, relatively than merely one or two missiles. A number of Ukrainian officers have already known as for individuals to desert Kiev as they warn it will likely be with out heating for main elements of the approaching winter.
Ukraine’s principal vitality authority Ukrenergo:
These developments counsel a new-found bloody-mindedness on the a part of Russia, maybe reflecting Russia’s recognition that the time is ripe for a decisive push. One other issue could also be Trump’s shameless peace theatrics, of embarrassing Putin by calling him and springing the scheme of a “probably Budapest” summit on the Russians, to which after a brief interval of regrouping, they agreed, after which going into Emily Litella “By no means thoughts” mode.
However Trump additionally retraded his earlier dedication, after the Alaska summit, to desert his “ceasefire first” place. The Russians rejecting that, as they persistently had, was apparently the set off for Trump scuppering the concept of one other summit pronto. In two lengthy interviews, Overseas Minister Lavrov has described how Witkoff got here to Moscow for a >3 hour assembly with Putin and set forth a US proposal, which Putin agreed to debate as the principle menu merchandise on the Alaska summit. Putin then in particular person with Trump went over the Witkoff phrases intimately and Trump confirmed that they had been certainly acceptable to the US. It’s this very personal Trump scheme that Trump has now repudiated. This brings the concept of “not settlement succesful” to a wholly new stage.
Trump additionally appears to be again to purchasing Ukraine propaganda intel that Russia’s navy and/or financial system are gonna fall over quickly, sure siree Bob:
TRUMP DROPS C WORD FOR C WORD – Trump has once more deserted fast CEASEFIRE and now expects CAPITULATION: “Generally individuals must combat it out a bit bit longer” https://t.co/EUoDk7CFp3 pic.twitter.com/KIOWRQN7xz
— Dances_with_Bears (@bears_with) November 7, 2025
Lavrov has ritually mentioned that Russia remains to be keen to work with the US on the Alaska “understandings”. The kinda-sorta face saver for Trump is that he apparently additionally represented to Putin that he may make Ukraine to simply accept this deal. Trump clearly has the means to take action. However he went TACO after press and official hysteria in regards to the mere reality of the summit on US soil, after which conferences with Zelensky and EU officers shortly thereafter. However the message from the US is that it will probably do what it needs to and the opposite aspect ought to swallow that. So regardless of making compulsory US friendly-noises, evidently Putin and others favoring a negotiated settlement can now not faux to themselves that there is likely to be a decision apart from Russia imposing a navy end result.
Maybe issues have modified, however Alexander Mercouris reported that Ukraine forces had been ordered to maneuver east to Myrnograd, which is rearranging deck chairs on this Titanic and assures their destruction or seize. Although Western sources are set to reduce it, the seize of Pokvrosk is an inflection level. Russia now has the warfare for the Donbass within the clean-up section, though that can require extra expenditure of lives and materiel to finish. Russia may select to strike West by means of comparatively thinly populated areas to the Dnieper, which might focus loads of minds. However with out realizing the Russia and Ukraine disposition of forces, as we’ll talk about quickly, there are causes for Russia to complete the job within the east and take the final, a lot much less formidable fortified line at Sloviansk and Kramatorsk first.
John Helmer, who has supplied far and away the perfect accounts of the electrical energy warfare, confirms that the most recent grid salvo displays a Russian choice to select up the tempo on this side of the warfare. Helmer’s sources contend that Russia may have ended the warfare a lot sooner with a sustained full bore assault on energy sources and supply, however Putin held that again for political causes. Helmer doesn’t unpack what they’re, however we are going to make a stab at what ones are doubtless nonetheless operative. We’ll see that even with Russia increasingly more clearly getting the higher hand on the battlefield, that different issues don’t clearly level multi functional route. We’ll talk about beneath how regardless of Russia simply having given a stark preview of its skill to carry Ukraine to its knees rapidly, Russia nonetheless has causes to maintain grinding out the warfare on the bottom.
However first to Helmer on the acceleration of the electrical energy warfare:
During the last three days the Normal Workers’s electrical warfare strikes have continued to accentuate on their targets and prolong proper throughout the Ukraine, with native utility firms asserting blackouts from Kharkov within the east to the western areas…
Russian navy analysts are effectively conscious and are actually reporting that because the electrical warfare marketing campaign first started in October 2022, the variety of strikes has been restricted in period, firepower, and injury effected….
However not this time, navy sources in Moscow imagine.
A few of the sources have claimed the Normal Workers didn’t have the capacities to totally implement the electrical warfare within the first two years…
Different sources imagine the navy sources, logistics pipeline, focusing on intelligence, and weapons accuracy and survivability weren’t as accessible to the Normal Workers in October 2022…
One supply says that President Vladimir Putin imposed restrictions on the extent and period of the marketing campaign however steadily he has been persuaded to chill out them…
A supply ready to know says the restrictions on the electrical warfare have been political, not navy, and in the interim Putin seems to have lifted them.
“I’ve a tricky time believing that the Normal Workers didn’t have the intelligence, not to mention the weapons accuracy and survivability essential to prosecute the electrical warfare from the beginning,” the supply feedback. “First…Data on the Ukrainian electrical technology, transmission, and distribution community was, and nonetheless is, extensively accessible in open supply. There is no such thing as a means that {the electrical} or civil engineers employed by the Normal Workers couldn’t know what to focus on and what firepower was mandatory. When it comes to weapons, the Russian forces had then, as they do now, shares of cruise, ballistic, and different air-dropped weapons, to not point out sabotage capabilities, to destroy the vital Ukrainian electrical nodes. There are roughly 35 main Ukrainian substations…Trying on the knowledge supplied in these sources, the Normal Workers have had greater than sufficient ordnance to take all of them out. They didn’t. Shifting ahead from this line of considering, I’m curious to know why Ukrainian electrical laydowns [storage areas] and repair autos haven’t been focused. Are we to imagine these couldn’t be seen? This defies rudimentary understanding of enemy logistic and restore capabilities. Fairly clearly, the delay to this point in attaining the whole collapse of the Ukrainian grid was and is the product of political decision-making, not any lack of functionality on the Russian navy’s half.”
Let’s undergo a few of these “political” issues that also complicate Russia merely turning out the sunshine and warmth throughout Ukraine:
Not producing a humanitarian disaster. It’s arduous to wage warfare with out killing loads of civilians however Russia has made an earnest try to this point. The strongest proof of Russia attempting to spare bystanders is that Russia didn’t take destroy Ukraine web, tv, radio and mobile phone services as quickly as doable. Ukraine has gotten so used to getting straightforward dealing with that there was whinging in regards to the lack of Web companies together with the large energy outages.
A few of the thorny associated issues:
With by some estimates half of the Ukraine inhabitants already having left, these that may’t depart (and even get to housing heated by furnace), those that stay will skew to the aged and infirm. Russia has managed to steer its financial allies and the International South that it’s conserving to the excessive floor as a lot as doable given the givens. That might evaporate quickly if energy outages produce giant scale deaths from chilly and illness in Ukraine cities.
Is Russia going to have the ability to present sufficient in the best way of reduction operations rapidly sufficient and on a big sufficient scale in winter situations to forestall widespread hardship?
Any of a meals, water, or medical provides disaster in an enormous Ukraine metropolis may function a pretext for sending in troops from EU member states, allegedly to supply reduction.
“You broke it, you personal it”. It isn’t clear that the Russian management has decided on how a lot of Ukraine, ex the oblasts it deems to be a part of Russia, that it might want to occupy or in any other case put below friendlier administration. As N/A identified:
Additionally as I’ve mentioned numerous occasions. These two nations are very effectively built-in with one another. This is not Germany or Britain or America. You’ll see a way more aggressive warfare in opposition to these than on Ukraine or Belarus or nations like that. Moldova as effectively https://t.co/97T0t8rv8W
— N/A (@xLUHG333) November 8, 2025
I agree with Mark Sleboda’s case as to why Russia controlling all of Ukraine is Russia’s least unhealthy choice. However that doesn’t imply Russia officers, who’ve a way more complete view, will come to that conclusion. However Russian hard-liners favor that end result, so it would get consideration.
Actuality is beginning to regime and attitude-change a few of Russia’s fierce opponents. Too many European leaders are nonetheless decided to Do One thing to cease Russia from rolling into Paris. The issue is that even with their restricted navy means, they may nonetheless set off a scorching warfare, as an illustration, with their drone and balloon false flags justifying a confrontation, say within the Baltic. Since each the UK and France have nukes, they can’t be fully discounted as powers. Undue belligerence and protracted stupidity may produce very unhealthy outcomes. And the US has not given a agency no to the concept of deploying the nuclear-capable Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine both.
However Brussels once more nixed seizing Russian frozen belongings, since different states are usually not keen to indemnify its ginormous authorized threat. And Slovakia has thrown one other spanner, saying it won’t again utilizing the funds in the event that they go to war-making.
This row over money is extra central than it may appear, since each Europe and the US each labor below the delusion that in the event that they throw sufficient cash on the downside, weapons will be magicked into existence. However, quelle shock, they’ll’t even provide you with that! From Euronews:
In keeping with sources near the discussions there’s rising concern within the Belgian authorities on the lack of other proposals from the European Fee to utilizing frozen Russian belongings to fund Ukraine.
The EU is pushing for a plan to make use of €140 billion in frozen Russian belongings held at Belgian monetary repository, Euroclear…
The Fee is on the lookout for methods to take care of Ukraine’s funding secure going into 2026 as the prices related to the warfare mount with out US assist, which has declined since President Donald Trump took workplace…
“To be frank, we’re nonetheless ready for the opposite choices that the European Fee was meant to current, as agreed on the European Council” in October, they [Belgian sources] informed Euronews…
“You can not take the perfect choice in case you don’t have all choices with its optimistic and damaging sides”, mentioned the supply.
If the plan fails, some choices floated in formally embody issuing joint debt, bilateral provisions from member states or a short-term bridge mortgage. Member states privately admit none of them could be as vital or secure because the reparations mortgage.
However the funding row is intensifying the strain on European nationwide budgets, the place governments are unpopular and falling as a consequence of already having made social spending cuts, and it has develop into all too apparent that supporting Undertaking Ukraine and an open-ended low stage warfare with Russia means much more of the identical. How lengthy, as an illustration, can France successfully don’t have any authorities as Macron refuses to name Parliamentary elections, which might affirm the recognition of the anti-war left and proper?
So since Putin can’t have his long-sought new European safety structure, maybe a next-best could be a Europe so divided on what to do about Russia in order to be immobilized.
So Russia has lastly made clear that it will probably, rapidly and with comparative ease, prostrate all of Ukraine. If anybody in senior positions in Ukraine was nonetheless in denial, this demonstration should have pushed that reality residence.
One motive to maintain pushing Ukraine to or over the brink is to pressure the federal government in Kiev to capitulate. Russia little doubt has a significantly better deal with on the true state of high stage cohesiveness than anybody within the chattering courses. However Zelensky could have too many diehard Banderites round him to do something apart from keep his current course or flee with key figures to arrange a authorities in exile.
A doable surgical use of Russia’s electrical energy warfare weapon could be to pressure the give up of key Ukraine cities. As an example, Russia has but to seize a metropolis as giant as both Dniepro or Zaporzhizhia, each of which it deems to be a part of the Russian Federation. Russia may march forces as much as the outskirts of certainly one of these cities, after which announce it would deprive them of energy except and till they give up. It may even have emergency provides and transport at prepared in order to assist residents who selected to decamp relatively than attempt to maintain out. Russia may hone this method on these Russia pleasant cities, and subsequent Kharkiv, after which if wanted preserve rolling westward.
Once more, that is a very dynamic state of affairs. Russia nonetheless has many, advanced selections to make and tradoffs to weigh. However the finish recreation is below means.
